Princeton Election Consortiumhttp://election.princeton.edu
A first draft of electoral history. Since 2004Sun, 07 Jun 2020 00:31:20 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.7http://election.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/bug_contrasted_500px.jpgPrinceton Election Consortiumhttp://election.princeton.edu
3232Authoritarianism in 2020: Checking the checklisthttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/06/04/trumps-authoritarianism-checking-the-2017-checklist/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/06/04/trumps-authoritarianism-checking-the-2017-checklist/#commentsThu, 04 Jun 2020 16:47:02 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23419In January 2017, shortly after the Inauguration, I provided a ten-item checklist of signs of authoritarianism. It seemed like a good idea to think in advance about what might happen, and lay down a marker in advance. In addition, I was concerned that the press, television media, and citizens might become desensitized to the news.

I was mocked by a few people as being hysterical. Likewise, scholars of authoritarianism such as Sarah Kendzior were also considered to be out there.

But then things started coming true. And scholars of authoritarianism were proved correct: see this recent NYT report.

Events have happened fast, and repeatedly. I provided a brief update to the list in May 2017, and another in August 2018. In light of recent events surrounding police and military response to the protests, it’s time to take stock.

Before going to the list, I want to note something striking. Even with unrest, military crackdowns, and pandemic, Donald Trump still has support from about three-fourths of self-described Republicans. His approval among all voters hasn’t fallen below a floor of about 39% (or gone above a ceiling of 43%) for nearly his entire presidency. The Republican Party, once the party of Eisenhower or Reagan, has become the party of Trump. As of today, he’s at 42.5% in the adjusted FiveThirtyEight average. As I wrote in October 2016, his base keeps him afloat.

Here’s the checklist. The Administration scores 9 out of 10.

The Authoritarian Checklist, June 2020 update

Taking sides with a foreign power against domestic opposition.

Detention of journalists.

Loss of press access to the White House.

Made-up charges against those who disagree with the government.

Use of governmental power to target individual citizens for retribution.

Use of a terrorist or other incident to take away civil liberties.

Persecution of an ethnic or religious minority, either by the Administration or its supporters.

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group.

Use of the Presidency to incite popular violence against individuals or organizations.

Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court.

The interpretation of authoritarianism doesn’t take into account the fact that many of these actions have been taken with a low degree of competence. The Administration is particularly maladroit. At some level, teargassing D.C. protesters is about what one might expect from a mayor. But these actions are now becoming normalized. People with more competence will be ready to take up the torch, as we saw in Senator Tom Cotton’s opinion piece. No matter who wins the Presidency in 2020, that is a concerning sign for 2024 – or even the next post-election transition.

And now, the details.

The Authoritarian Checklist: 2020 status update

Taking sides with a foreign power against domestic opposition. This one’s been obvious from the start. Favoring Russia over G-7 and NATO, even in the face of interference with U.S. elections. Siding with North Korea over the U.S. foreign policy establishment. And attempting to draw Ukraine into U.S. presidential politics. Verdict: yes.

Detention of journalists. This hasn’t happened systematically as a national policy. But the events of the last week suggest that it’s increased as a general phenomenon. Policemen around the nation have gone to efforts to assault and abuse reporters. They have been encouraged by repeated assertions by Trump that the press is the enemy. Detentions have occurred, but not ordered directly. In fact, the situation has deteriorated to the point that allied nations are investigating US treatment of journalists. Verdict: yes.

Loss of press access to the White House. Access has been reduced substantially. Over time, more assertive reporters such as Jorge Ramos, Jim Acosta, Kaitlan Collins have been tossed out. When press briefings do occur, they include a veritable river of lies unlike any press events in memory. This vitiates the point of press events. Verdict: yes.

Use of governmental power to target individual citizens for retribution. It began with prosecuting leakers rather than the leaked offense. Immigrants and their children, who are citizens, have been targeted after they spoke out. Government officials have been targeted for doing their jobs (Peter Strzok), speaking their minds on matters of national importance (John Brennan, Alexander Vindman, Maria Yovanovitch), and even coronavirus researcher (Peter Daszak). Verdict: yes.

Use of a terrorist or international incident to take away civil liberties. This one happened in the last week. I was wrong that it would involve terrorism. Instead, the trigger is domestic protests of the continuing wave of police killings of innocent black people. The use of military force against protesters in the District of Columbia, including the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park, is a clear First-Amendment violation of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition. Verdict: yes.

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group (e.g. LGBT, Muslim, and other groups). This started early, with the firing of FBI director James Comey…though really, that is more in the category of obstruction of justice. There were the firings of many members of the intelligence community. Most recently, many Inspectors General have been dismissed, an action that curbs oversight of government agencies at a time when they are handling trillions of dollars in new aid. Verdict: yes.

Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court. Although he has fulminated about disbanding an appeals court, it didn’t happen. But it didn’t have to. In 2017 I said that the judiciary acted as an institutional check on executive power. But with two appointments to the Supreme Court and one out of four federal judges appointed by Trump, courts’ tendency to check the executive branch has weakened considerably. An early example was the Supreme Court upholding the Muslim ban in the Trump v. Hawaii decision. More recently, the Supreme Court is not allowing Trump’s tax returns to be released. Verdict: no, but because of a captured judiciary.

That’s right, we are hosting an event for an author who wants to do away with the reason that most people come to this site. It’s a terrific book, full of important history. Getting a national popular vote will be very hard…but we have to build for the future. Jesse Wegman’s new book lays the foundation.

Postscript: 294 attendees, a great turnout for a warm evening. Nerdy aside: many questions we didn’t get to are answered in my forthcoming article with Jacob Canter in the Harvard Law and Policy Review, available here. [SSRN]

As of today, survey support for Biden is 4.6% above threshold in terms of Electoral College mechanisms. Median snapshot of current polls: Biden 343, Trump 195 EV.

Today’s poll-based modal outcome (i.e. the single most probable combination):
Here’s what it looks like if just 2% of voters flip from Biden to Trump uniformly:
Not exactly a landslide situation yet.

As always with the Electoral College, voter power varies tremendously by state. Here is per-voter influence over the Presidential outcome. In these units, my “jerseyvote” is worth about 0.5.

This valuation is key to our mission in 2020, which is to help readers focus their efforts where they will be most effective. In the coming weeks, we’ll expand the valuation from its past focus (Presidential, Senate, and House) to include state-level races, including legislative races. These last races are especially important, since redistricting will happen in 2021 – and redrawing the political playing field for a decade.

South Korea and the United States had their first coronavirus case on the same day. But from there, their trajectories diverged radically. What’s happening in Korea, and what is their strategy for reopening? Very soon, Julian Zelizer and I speak with Asaph Young Chun, who is helping head the re-opening effort. Listen to Politics and Polls tonight, live, and ask questions! Click HERE to listen. (requires Zoom).

To ask questions:

use the Zoom Q&A

Tweet your questions using the hashtag #politicspolls, or

text us at this Google Voice number: 929-242-9349

I’ll post a link to the recording later.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/19/how-is-south-koreas-re-opening-going/feed/0Steak-umm Bless!http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/18/steak-umm-bless/
Mon, 18 May 2020 15:51:34 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23340I was interviewed on the essential topic of Steak-umm’s advocacy for truth and evidence-based policy. Juliana Kaplan at Business Insider reports.
]]>2020 is a close national election, especially for Senate and state legislatureshttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/16/2020-is-shaping-up-to-be-another-close-one/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/16/2020-is-shaping-up-to-be-another-close-one/#commentsSun, 17 May 2020 03:37:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23328
Despite Trump’s low approval numbers, April/May polls indicate a closer race than Obama 2008 or Obama 2012. This is yet again another close Presidential race, same as it’s generally been since 2000. We live in an era of close elections, and 2020 is not yet an exception. (Note that even Obama’s 53%-46% win in 2008 is fairly close by historical standards. You probably have a different idea of what “close” means.)

A four-point swing – or 2% of voters changing their minds – would make Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida more likely to go to Trump, and bring the mode outcome close to a perfect toss-up. In the terminology of this site, the current Presidential Meta-Margin is Biden +4%.

A six-point swing (3% of voters changing their minds) would bring the mode outcome to Trump 294, Biden 244.

Senate. The same is true in Senate races. Thanks to natural gerrymandering (two Dakotas, one California, that kind of thing) and today’s severe polarization, Republicans can maintain control of the Senate with a little less than 50% popular support. Despite that, Democrats have a shot at retaking control if they win a handful of races.

They start from 46 seats (counting Sanders as a Democrat, and assuming Doug Jones loses in Alabama). The basket of competitive Senate races, listed in order from Democratic-leaning to Republican-leaning, is:

If Democrats were to win four of these races, they would get to 50 seats, opening the possibility of taking control of the chamber. Given current polling data, they could conceivably win all but Georgia and Iowa, which gets them to 52 seats.

In 2020, we will focus on citizen leverage. Your donations and efforts have the most influence on representation in cases where the race is on a knife’s edge – if it’s within a few points in either direction. Therefore Senate races from the middle of the list above are the best place to put resources. In the ActBlue on the right, I currently include Senate races in North Carolina, Montana, Maine, and Iowa.

Conversely, Alabama and Kentucky are not efficient places to put money. I know Democratic readers of this site would like to oust Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell from office. That is unlikely (at least until new data come in suggesting otherwise), but a more likely way to affect him would be to deprive him of his Majority Leader role.

State races. Finally, I am most excited about our newest expansion effort: identifying leverage in state legislative races and voter initiatives. These are cases where your activism can move the needle on policy and, in many cases, lead to bipartisan rule. for example, in Kansas, changing just one legislative seat would remove the supermajority, and compel the Republican-controlled legislature to work with the Democratic governor. Opportunities to flip partisan control can be found in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. These apply to both parties – Republicans would surely like to avoid single-party Democratic rule in Minnesota.
Some of those state legislatures have a say in redistricting. In those cases, a change in control in 2020 would have a decade’s worth of effects. Those states are Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, and Texas. (I’m leaving out Minnesota for reasons I’ll explain another day.)

Again, you can donate to all of these efforts on this site, whether you’re a Democrat (ActBlue) or Republican (RSLC; see right sidebar).

We’ll set up the usual feed soon. Also, the site’s getting a revamp soon!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/16/2020-is-shaping-up-to-be-another-close-one/feed/12All Fixing Bugs in Democracy videos are available on YouTubehttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/12/all-fixing-bugs-in-democracy-videos-are-available-on-youtube/
Tue, 12 May 2020 20:24:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23318Our Fixing Bugs in Democracy series got off to a great start in April. Now, all three of our videos are available on YouTube. Watch a playlist of our Virtual Town Halls, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

In June, we’re planning on having even more virtual events. Check back here for details!

]]>CDC Guidance For Re-openinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/07/cdc-guidance-for-re-opening/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/07/cdc-guidance-for-re-opening/#commentsThu, 07 May 2020 14:33:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23320Controversially, the Administration is now pushing the idea of re-opening daily life in the United States. This is a questionable idea, considering the lack of firm standards for doing so. Also, at the beginning of the sheltering order, it was clear that re-opening would require procedures for testing, tracking, and isolation. In most states, those have not been set up.

Now, it turns out that a Centers for Disease Control document (draft version here) has been suppressed by the Administration. As reported, by AP’s Jason Dearen and Mike Stobbe, this 17-page document gives detailed procedures and guidance. It comes after previous more general CDC guidelines and an internal CDC briefing memo.

Together, these documents are exactly what we need for an orderly national response. Failing that, it’s up to the states. Here in NJ/NY/CT, case rates and death rates are coming down. Here in New Jersey, local information can be found at covid19.nj.gov.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/05/07/cdc-guidance-for-re-opening/feed/1Coronavirus New York state update: switching from Johns Hopkins to NYT datahttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/19/coronavirus-new-york-state-update-switching-from-johns-hopkins-to-the-new-york-times/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/19/coronavirus-new-york-state-update-switching-from-johns-hopkins-to-the-new-york-times/#commentsMon, 20 Apr 2020 01:35:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23300Over the last few days, our doubling-time tracker has showed steady progress toward longer times in nearly every state – except New York. We think we’ve identified a source of inaccuracy: uneven updating at the Johns Hopkins site. They’re excellent, but their data isn’t intended for visual display. So we’re switching to the New York Times feed.

Here’s our revised graph based on NYT data:
Further thoughts after the jump.

The Hopkins data is itself just a collection scraped from many sources. On the other hand, the NYT is doing more traditional on-the-ground reporting of cases and tallying the data in-house. In addition, the NYT is making its own graphs, which means that as they apply their editorial judgement on what to count, they can see anomalies in the data as they develop.

Most states aren’t affected by this switch – with the prominent exception of New York.

The Johns Hopkins graph:
The Hopkins data shows a rapid increase in deaths late last week that contradicted most other reports. They appear to have since revised that number downward. My best guess is that it was a consequence of the decision to start including probable covid-19-related death counts (as opposed to only patients who tested positive), since there was some reporting on that earlier in the week. Nevertheless, it does seem the Times has more people attending to their data pipeline, and probably more attention to the accuracy of USA-specific data. That’s not to say we don’t trust the JHU data, it just may take them longer to correct errors. Since the NYT is currently showing more deaths, that may be a better measure to capture everything that’s happening.

I was on with Bill Nye and Corey S. Powell to talk about elections, polls, and neuroscience. It was a lively and fun conversation – take a listen!

Topics: the Electoral College, polls, what neuroscientists do for fun, gerrymandering…lots of topics. Those guys move fast!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/19/elections-neuroscience-and-bill-nye/feed/0Why did the doubling time accelerate in New York?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/18/why-did-the-doubling-time-accelerate/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/18/why-did-the-doubling-time-accelerate/#respondSat, 18 Apr 2020 22:18:45 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23283In the last few days, the doubling time of death has decreased – an apparent acceleration. Why is that? Well…more people are dying now, in particular in New York. It’s not apparent in other states. Could be a backlog of reporting, in which case the doubling time will get back to lengthening soon. For now, we must assume that there’s still a problem.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/18/why-did-the-doubling-time-accelerate/feed/0Fixing Bugs In Democracy: Dave Daley, author of Unriggedhttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/17/fixing-bugs-in-democracy-dave-daley-author-of-unrigged/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/17/fixing-bugs-in-democracy-dave-daley-author-of-unrigged/#commentsFri, 17 Apr 2020 21:07:33 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23275Dave Daley’s the Hunter S. Thompson of democracy reform. His reportage is the indispensable resource. First with Ratf***ed, his chronicle of gerrymandering. Now he’s out with Unrigged, his story of how citizens are rising up all over the nation to restore and strengthen democracy. Tune in at 6:00pm Eastern!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/17/fixing-bugs-in-democracy-dave-daley-author-of-unrigged/feed/1Curve Benthttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/13/curve-bent/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/13/curve-bent/#commentsMon, 13 Apr 2020 17:50:48 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23256There it is. Time to double the number of deaths, as of today: US 7.2 days, NJ 6.5 days, NY 7.3 days.

The number of deaths approximately reflects new infections as of about 2-3 weeks ago. Therefore the number of new infections was doubling every 7 days. Since infection itself lasts about 2 weeks, i.e. an average of 1 week, this means that the newly infected were approximately equal to the newly recovered. That suggests the number of infected peaked – and is therefore should be on the decline.

Note that deaths is a good way to track the course of covid-19. Even if underreported, the degree of underreporting is less likely to change than the number of confirmed cases.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/13/curve-bent/feed/2Bernie Sanders’s parting gift to Wisconsin votershttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/11/bernies-mulishness-vs-the-wisconsin-supreme-court-who-will-prevail/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/11/bernies-mulishness-vs-the-wisconsin-supreme-court-who-will-prevail/#commentsSat, 11 Apr 2020 16:07:58 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23241When it comes to partisan warfare, Wisconsin is at the top of any list. In 2011, Republicans, with the help of their Governor Scott Walker, committed one of the most egregious gerrymanders of all time. The General Assembly locked itself into power for a decade. Now, thanks to Bernie Sanders’s persistence, Democrats may take a small step toward building a defense against more depredations in 2021.

The story you may have seen in this week’s national news is somewhat different. It is a tale of (a) Bernie mulishly refusing to get out of the Presidential race, (b) state court and the U.S. Supreme Court stepping in to limit vote-counting and prevent Governor Evers from delaying the election, and (c) long lines for voting that could spread coronavirus and depress turnout.I think all of these ideas are wrong. Today in The Hill, I argue that turnout was unusually high – thanks to a combination of Bernie staying in the race and record levels of mail-in voting. I also think that the threat to life caused by in-person voting was likely to be minimal. Check it out.

Update, April 13, 8:00pm: And, Karofsky wins, 55-45, with 1.55 million votes cast overall. The big lesson, to me, is twofold. (1) Give people a shiny object to make them turn out. (2) Get mail-in voting ready for November. There’s likely to be a second coronavirus outbreak in the fall. We have to be ready to have an orderly election that is conducted mostly by mail.

Correction: In the 2019 state Supreme Court race, 1.2 million votes were cast and counted. Still not as high as last week’s turnout – and without the motivating factor of a Democratic primary.

Today we’re pleased to present our latest virtual town hall on problems in our democracy and how to fix them. Professor Julian Zelizer and I talk with Katie Fahey, who launched a movement to change redistricting in Michigan. Our focus: how to organize everywhere – even in today’s weird conditions.

In November, Virginia voters will vote on a constitutional amendment to give part of the redistricting power to citizens. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s one-page summaries of the amendment’s minority protections, commission process, and transparency requirements (which supplement our February 2020 report) describe some missing components: added protections for minorities and political parties. These protections require enabling legislation, which the General Assembly had the power to pass, but didn’t before the end of their legislative session.

Governor Northam still has the power to compel a vote on this enabling legislation’s key provisions. Now presented with bills for his signature, he can also send them back modified for consideration by the General Assembly, in a take-it-or-leave-it process known as a veto session. This veto session provides one last shot at adding protections to strengthen the reform.

The first one-pager clarifies that the amendment (SJ18) does protect minority communities, on its own and without enabling legislation, through standalone Voting Rights Act language. The latter two discuss how the enabling legislation (SB203/HB758), which died in Conference Committee, would have built upon the amendment’s provisions and offer suggestions for further improvements.

Key protections that will strengthen SJ18 were in the enabling legislation, which is no longer on the table. However, the Governor can amend the criteria bill that passed (SB717/HB1255) to add key missing pieces from the enabling legislation to the criteria bill. That amended version of the criteria bill, with the enabling provisions added in, would then go to the veto session of the General Assembly for an up-or-down vote.

No matter what, having passed the General Assembly, the reform amendment will now go before the voters in November, the supermajority of whom support it, according to a Wason Center poll in December 2019.

Today I had a great conversation with Cliff Schecter and John Aravosis on their podcast, UnPresidented. Mostly we talked about the math and science of coronavirus. But we also got into Wisconsin politics as well as the neuroscience of having an obsessively complete command of U.S. political history. And we even talked about the Lochner court! Take a listen.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/07/sam-on-unpresidented-with-cliff-schecter-and-john-aravosis/feed/0Coronavirus epidemic: The end of the beginning?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/07/coronavirus-past-the-halfway-point-of-maximum-risk/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/07/coronavirus-past-the-halfway-point-of-maximum-risk/#commentsTue, 07 Apr 2020 10:30:29 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23094Mathematical models of the disease are useful for state/national-level decisionmaking. But they don’t seem to address what we need as individuals. So Lucas Manning, Ben Deverett, and I calculated some simpler things. Basically, I think we’re at or slightly past the point of maximum personal risk. We just have to shelter for another…month!

Yesterday I visited friends by standing outside their houses, talking at 3-4 meters. We’re also getting good at Zoom dinner parties – distance socializing. By continuing to shelter in place, we are all doing our part.

Are you tired of the sheltering? I have bad news…and good news. My focus is New Jersey. What I say also applies to New York City and state. I will give information about other states along the way.

First, the bad news. Our state just passed 1,000 deaths. The total number of deaths has doubled in the last 3.9 days, according to our analysis. At this speed, the total number of people currently infected in N.J. is, in all likelihood, the highest it has ever been in this epidemic. Take care, now more than ever. Postpone even necessary errands for a few days.

And now, the good news: the infection rate may be starting to creep down a little – all across the nation! Even with uncertainties of counting and testing, the available evidence supports this conclusion.

Coronavirus appears to spread equally effectively in a wide variety of states, whether sparsely or densely populated. If you look by region, doubling times are generally in the 3-4 day range. Potentially, this is frightening. Unchecked, doubling and redoubling would infect pretty much all of us by May.

However, notice a general trend: the U.S. as a whole, and pretty much every region, are trending upward. This slowing is good news. To make an analogy to compound interest, the “interest rate of death” is decreasing.

Some regions are doing very well. In Pacific states, the doubling-time is 5 to 10 days.

In those states, not only are deaths slowing, the number of infected people has probably been decreasing for at least a week. How do we know that?

The rate at which people die of covid-19 is proportional to the number of people who are infected (at least, until intensive care units start to overflow and we run out of ventilators). So if total deaths are doubling, so is the number of total cumulative infected.

But people don’t stay infective forever. For example, if the period of being infectious is 2 weeks, then the average time of being infections is 1 week, or 7 days. If this is true, then once the doubling time gets above 7 days, more people are getting over their infection than the number of people becoming newly infected.

In other words, Washington and Oregon have maxed out on the number of infected. Their risk is now decreasing. In fact, they hit that break-even point a while ago, since deaths are a lagging indicator of new infection. Three cheers for Governor Jay Inslee and his government! They might be a few weeks away from the next stage of recovery: testing, tracking, and maybe easing of restrictions.

California and Rocky Mountain states are close behind.

Before we get too excited about this, let’s pause to think about possible problems with this analysis. The number of deaths from coronavirus may be underestimated. But as long as the fraction of missed deaths stays about the same, doubling time estimates are not affected. As a worst-case scenario, even if that fraction increases by a factor of 1.5 over two weeks, in a fast-spreading state like New Jersey the doubling time would increase by only 0.3 days. In contrast, tracking the number of confirmed cases is far worse because of limited testing and aggressive triaging. For these reasons, in my view the number of deaths is an accurate readout, albeit a slow one.

Back to the analysis.

What about the eastern part of the nation? We’re not there yet. However, the overall trend is clear – doubling times are getting longer in nearly every state. Here are the top ten by number of deaths:However, in all cases the doubling time is still less than 7 days. That means that as of two weeks ago (about when these people got infected), the number of infected people was still rising. But with two more weeks of sheltering, it is likely that last week was the moment of highest individual risk of infection. We may be past the halfway mark of this whole hellish experience. (Or more accurately, we may be at least halfway this phase of our hellish experience.)

But the risk is still high. Here in New Jersey, I estimate that as many as 1 in 30 people has coronavirus. As a number of us scientists and medical leaders wrote a few weeks ago, New Jersey has to shelter in place at least through the end of April. Do not falter now. Reduce the risk to you as an individual and to everyone you meet.

Stay Jersey Strong!

>>>

If you like what we do at the Princeton Election Consortium, look in the right sidebar for ways to contribute. These optimize the effectiveness of political donations, whether you support Democrats (ActBlue) or Republicans (RSLC).

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/03/fixing-bugs-in-democracy-a-conversation-with-ellen-weintraub/feed/0Bending the Curve on Covid-19: Doubling Times as a Simple Metrichttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/02/doubling-times/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/02/doubling-times/#commentsThu, 02 Apr 2020 12:27:44 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=23014Click here or on the right sidebar for automatically-updated versions.

How will we know if we’re making progress on containing the coronavirus epidemic? One of the best measures, relatively free of biases that can creep in, is how long it takes for total deaths to double.

When this “doubling time” is 3 days or less, that’s been an indication of runaway spread of coronavirus. If it gets longer, that indicates a slowdown – either because shelter-in-place is starting to work, or someday, that the virus is spreading less efficiently (through changes in weather, improved treatments, vaccination, and inoculation).

First the key graph:

And now, an explanation.

It has been the case empirically that without taking measures to contain the spread, the number of corona deaths has doubled approximately every 3 days. Here is world data to show you that point.
Over and over, the shortest time for deaths to double is 3 days. Why would that be?

The likeliest explanation is that the number of people infected doubles every 3 days. This would depend on how likely an infected person (with or without symptoms) is to infect others, on a per-day basis.

Think of it as being like “compound interest.” Professional investors know the “rule of 72”: if you have an annual rate of return of X percent, your money will take 72-divided-by-X years to double. It’s the same for pandemics – except we’re talking days, not years.

Imagine that you are infected. I know, you feel fine. But you can still be infectious. What if you had a 24% chance of infecting someone during the day? If everyone had that that probability on average, then the number of infected people would double in 72/24=3 days. And that’s what we’re seeing.

Social distancing reduces this percentage. If you can get your percentage down by half, then the probability of infecting someone would be 12% per day. And the doubling time would be 72/12 = 6 days. That’s what bends the curve.

In other words, changes in how you personally behave every day can prevent many deaths later. By now you know the drill:

Stand at least 6 feet (2 meters) from people

Wear a mask.

Wash your hands before touching things that other people touch.

Don’t touch your face with an unwashed hand.

The goal of public directives is to get people to do all of this, on average. But people are different. Under normal conditions, some people stay at home and infect nobody. Extroverts and lovers of crowds infect lots of people. On average, it probably works out to about a one in four chance every day, about 25%.

What are the odds that you touch a door knob, someone else touches it, then they touch their face? Just once during the day? Surely at least one in four. Social distancing reduces the one-in-four chance to one-in-40. And that turns your awesome viral “investment” into the equivalent of a money market fund.

This buys time for the medical system to accommodate patients, and maybe even lets the epidemic peter out.

Now let’s look at doubling-time trends around the world and here in the United States.

Above is the doubling time of deaths in selected countries worldwide. The data come from the Johns Hopkins University covid-19 site. South Korea, which moved aggressively to contain the epidemic, has successfully gotten the doubling time to slow to 25 days. They reported their first coronavirus case on January 20, one day before the United States. Their epidemic is under control – while ours is still roaring along.

What’s the difference? Three reasons:

Social distancing. The United States was very slow to adopt this.

Testing. As of March 17, South Korea did 70 times as much testing per capita as the United States. Another estimate from around that time has the ratio as about 20. That ratio is likely even higher now that the infected population has exploded. In short, testing in the United States is inadequate. (Here in New Jersey, I currently know eight people with probable coronavirus, but only two have been tested.)

Contact tracing. South Korea was aggressive about contact tracing, even using a smartphone app to help people identify nearby cases of live infection – and avoid them.

Even now, we have yet to catch up. A big reason has been the failed response at a national level, and lack of relevant or accurate guidance from the President. That leaves containment to the states. And as of April 2, only 39 out of 50 governors have implemented shelter-at-home measures.

Now let’s look at regions:
The only region to get the spread under control is the Pacific states (Washington, California, and Oregon combined). Other regions are still experiencing runaway spread – though overall, trends are encouraging. Since it takes 5 days for coronavirus infection to turn symptomatic on average, and about 14 days to kill a person, it will take about 2-3 weeks for social distancing and sheltering measures to put a dent in the runaway growth.

Here is the doubling time on a state-by-state basis:

Again, measures haven’t kicked in yet, even in places like Ohio where the governor worked aggressively and early.

Don’t get too excited, Floridians. You still have few cases, so your curve is noisy. Many thousands of cases are incubating now, and that curve will probably come right down to the pink zone of runaway spread in the coming days.

>>

Now, why am I not talking about confirmed cases? Because they can contain terrible biases.

Here, the growth appears to be slowing down. But that is probably because of limited availability and use of testing. For example, the number of tests run per day in New Jersey has flattened, despite the fact that we’re crashing into disaster.

So although we are calculating these curves too, we’re not emphasizing them.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/04/02/weintraub/feed/0Virginia is one step closer to having the South’s first redistricting commissionhttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/03/06/virginias-amendment-one-step-closer-to-being-the-souths-first-redistricting-commission/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/03/06/virginias-amendment-one-step-closer-to-being-the-souths-first-redistricting-commission/#commentsFri, 06 Mar 2020 23:21:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22972

Source: Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury (@gmoomaw)

Following a close floor vote in the House, Virginia’s General Assembly has now passed its constitutional amendment, SJ18, creating a 16-member bipartisan, hybrid redistricting commission. As a result, this amendment will head to the voters this November to be considered as a ballot question. Huge steps towards reform in the Commonwealth!

Yesterday, Delegate Marcus Simon introduced a floor substitute to the constitutional amendment, SJ18, that would have created an eleven-member citizen commission, enshrined more criteria into the Virginia Constitution, and ensured diversity within the commission’s members. However, because of Virginia’s constitutional amendment process, changing SJ18 would have meant ending any chance at reform before the 2021 redistricting cycle.

In Virginia, a constitutional amendment must pass in two General Assembly sessions with an intervening House of Delegates election. The amendment’s language must be identical in both of these sessions. As of this morning, the original language of SJ18 had gone through parts of this process: it had passed through the General Assembly in February 2019, and there was a House of Delegates election in November 2019. Thus, SJ18 needed to pass again, language unchanged, during the current session.

Because of this requirement, the Simon substitute would not have been able to take effect until 2022 or later. Assuming it could have gotten through the Senate, it would have passed for the first time in March 2020. But the next Virginia House election is in November 2021, meaning that the substitute would be unable to pass its required second reading until the 2022 session – months after Virginia redistricts in 2021. The likely plan was for the statutory alternative, HB1256‘s, advisory commission to act as a stopgap in 2021. Then the House could have considered the substitute in the next decade, sometime after 2022. In short, the substitute would have made it so that no constitutional commission existed until 2031.

However, after many floor speeches, this substitute failed to pass by a vote of 43 yeas to 57 nays.

After the substitute failed, the full House finally considered SJ18’s original language, after weeks of delay. More floor speeches were given before the final vote on the redistricting reform amendment, which passed 54Y-46N.

This passage means that Virginia is most of the way to becoming the first Southern state with a redistricting commission that puts citizens in the room where maps are drawn. Not only that, but Virginia is now most of the way to becoming the first state without a citizen-based initiative process to pass this kind of meaningful reform. Now, the constitutional amendment heads to the voters in November for the final step in the amendment process, where it is likely to pass.

We here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project were glad to play some small part in the process through hand-delivering our Citizen’s Guide to legislators and sending our coalition letters (National and Southern) to Speaker Filler-Corn. We will continue to be involved moving forward and hope that the amendment is successful in November!

>>>

(Note: the enabling legislation (SB203/HB758), which bolsters SJ18, has passed both chambers of the General Assembly with bipartisan support, but due to minor language differences, they are headed to legislative conference. These must pass in their final, agreed-upon forms before Virginia’s legislative session ends sometime tomorrow.)

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/03/06/virginias-amendment-one-step-closer-to-being-the-souths-first-redistricting-commission/feed/1National and Southern organizations speak in favor of reform in VAhttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/03/02/national-and-southern-organizations-speak-in-favor-of-reform-in-va/
Mon, 02 Mar 2020 15:52:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22970Last week, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, in conjunction with other redistricting reform organizations, sent two letters to Virginia Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn, imploring her to introduce the reform amendment, SJ18, on the floor of House of Delegates. The introduction of, and eventual floor vote on, this proposal is key to ensuring that redistricting is done in a fairer and more transparent way. With a Committee vote on SJ18 set for later this afternoon, the House’s consideration of the amendment starts as the General Assembly begins its final week of session.

The first letter was co-signed by other national organizations working across the country to support state-level reform. The coalition included:

Common Cause

The League of Women Voters of the United States

RepresentUs

Together, we note the nationwide importance of this amendment, which would see Virginia join other states in removing redistricting authority from the legislators themselves. More significantly, Virginia would be the first state without a citizen-based initiative process to pass meaningful redistricting reform. The letter also emphasizes the reform provisions provided for in the amendment and enabling legislation, both of which have already passed the Senate and have broad support in the House. Not to mention overwhelming support from Virginia’s voters.

The second letter was co-signed by organizations in North Carolina and Texas that have been on the frontlines of reform in their states. This southern coalition included:

Common Cause, North Carolina

Raleigh-Apex NAACP

Common Cause, Texas

League of Women Voters, Texas

Texas Progressive Action Network

Texans Against Gerrymandering

These organizations discuss Virginia’s opportunity to act as a leader for the South by following through on its promises of redistricting reform. Many Southern states lack initiative processes, so like the Commonwealth, they too must rely on electing reform-minded legislators. By passing reform, Virginian legislators can restore public trust by showing that sometimes politicians do keep their promises, which would make reform more possible in other states. On the other hand, if Virginia reneges on reform, these organizations fear that efforts in Southern states, such as reform legislation in North Carolina and public hearing testimony in Texas, will suffer as a result.

The state of play in the Commonwealth has changed over the weekend. Governor Northam has stepped in to try to break the Democrats’ reform deadlock with a yet-to-be-released alternative proposal or the possibility of a special legislative session later on. The House Privileges & Elections Committee hearing (and promised vote on SJ18), which was originally set for 9:30am today, has been moved to sometime this afternoon. Following that vote, the full House of Delegates will have until Saturday to vote on the constitutional amendment. We hope that the General Assembly will follow through on redistricting reform – the voters, the region, and the nation are watching.

Let’s get right to it (aka the $64K question): Who has the BEST chance to beat Trump? Your personal opinion and/or statistically.

The answer is that as far as I can tell, basically it doesn’t matter.

More than anything else, a presidential election is a referendum on the incumbent. The one predictive variable is presidential approval. National popular vote share has ended up within 0-4 points of national job approval, as noted by Kyle Kondik:The breakeven point for Trump, in terms of the Electoral College, is about 48% (assuming normal levels of support for minor-party candidacies; 2016 had abnormally high levels of minor-party support for Stein and Johnson and had a lower threshold, 46%).

Therefore the number to watch is Trump’s approval. If it gets to 46% then he has even odds of re-election. His range in 2018-2019, as per FiveThirtyEight, has been 39-44%.

If one assigned the entire 4-point difference to the quality of the opponent, then that’s a ceiling on how much that person’s identity matters. From the above table, then, that logic would suggest that Ronald Reagan was a weak opponent in 1980, as was Bill Clinton in 1992. I don’t believe that.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump has taken partisan polarization to extremes and represents the apex of trends that began in the mid-1990s. His Administration is radically shaping what the executive branch does, sometimes in authoritarian directions. It’s going to be hard to focus this year’s campaign on anything other than his performance as an incumbent.

Bottom line, it might make a small difference who gets the nomination, but really, Donald Trump’s approval/disapproval rating is moving in a very narrow range. Consequently that number is likely to be the best information we have about November. You should not be asking about “electability,” but re-electability.

One final and essential point: Trump’s approval is remarkably stable. The standard deviation is about 0.7 percentage point, the lowest since Eisenhower. To recover from where he is now, he has to bust out of that pattern. That will require something to expand his appeal beyond his hardcore base. For example, with the impeachment trial over, his rating is at the top of its range so far. If that is sustained, it could get him above the necessary threshold.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/15/deleted-comment/feed/15As bills switch chambers, a close vote for redistricting reform in Virginiahttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/12/as-bills-switch-chambers-a-close-vote-for-redistricting-reform-in-virginia/
Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:06:33 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22881On Tuesday, both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly were hectically busy as they raced to pass legislation before the “crossover” deadline, by which bills must switch from one chamber to the other. Only a few redistricting form bills are left standing after crossover, but two paths remain: the constitutional amendment (HJ71/SJ18) and its enabling legislation (HB758/SB203), and the alternate statutory commission bill (HB1256) with an accompanying fairness-criteria bill (HB1255/SB717). Both of these paths contain fairness criteria, including doing away with prison gerrymandering. These paths remain open as the bills move from one chamber to the next.

In the chart below, bills that have died are struck through; the others are now moving to their opposite chamber with House bills going to the Senate and vice versa. (Note: the House version of the constitutional amendment, HJ71, has until next week to pass through the House process.)

A few things that the above table doesn’t show. The enabling legislation (HB758/SB203) now requires recusal of any Supreme Court justice who is related to a member of the General Assembly and disallows family members of legislators from serving on the retired-judge Selection Committee. A slight difference between the enabling legislation is that HB758 now states that the Supreme Court “shall follow” the judicial guidelines prescribed in the bill, rather than “give consideration to” them.

Even though HB1256 is largely similar to the enabling legislation, it has some minor differences too. These include a higher number of hearings, requirements for recording and archiving Commission meetings, and stronger language about diversity.

Tuesday’s votes went late into the evening in the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate floor’s livestream cut out right as they began to discuss the enabling legislation (SB203). From what I can tell (via the bill tracking website), a floor amendment had been presented by Senator Jill Vogel that would have removed the fairness criteria, including the language to end prison gerrymandering. But that amendment did not go through, leaving last week’s version of SB203 unscathed.

Following this vote, the enabling legislation passed 20-20 with the tiebreaker vote in favor of passage cast by Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax. What makes this close Senate vote odd is that the near-identical House version of the enabling legislation (HB758) passed through the House on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 83-14.

After midnight on Tuesday, the Senate passed the constitutional amendment by a near unanimous 38-2. This means every reform bill (except for HJ71) will now begin the legislative process again in the opposite chamber. Exciting times continue on in the Old Dominion!

]]>Sanders v. Buttigieg?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/11/like-i-said-saturday/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/11/like-i-said-saturday/#commentsWed, 12 Feb 2020 01:55:29 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22905The New Hampshire primary is coming in as expected from last week’s polls. Like I said Saturday, past patterns suggest that the most likely nominee will be Sanders or Buttigieg.

Based on the fact that the past pattern has only been observed across 9 nomination races, the probability of an exception might be around 1 in 10. (It reminds me of what Laplace said about the probability of the sun rising tomorrow – depends on how many times we’ve seen it before. Though in the case of sunrise, there are major logical problems.)

Regarding Bloomberg and Klobuchar: Those are probably transient surges. Recall the life cycle of minor candidates. They rise, they get scrutiny, stories come out, and then they fall again. The whole cycle takes two months.

Bloomberg is due to peak about now. If he can keep up his rise, we’ll find out in the next 1-2 weeks. If New Hampshire is good for Klobuchar, we’ll find that out too.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/11/like-i-said-saturday/feed/3Moneyball politics: Florida (Part II)http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/09/moneyball-politics-florida-part-ii/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/09/moneyball-politics-florida-part-ii/#commentsSun, 09 Feb 2020 13:36:48 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22843A few days ago, I wrote about how focused effort in a handful of Florida state legislative districts could lead to outsized consequences lasting for the next decade. Here are those districts – and ways to focus on them.

The current composition of the Florida House is 73 Republicans, 47 Democrats. Every seat is up this November. In 2018, the 14 closest Republican districts were decided by an average margin of 3.0% – about 2,100 votes. That is much smaller than 12,000, the average number of citizens per district who are potentially re-enfranchised by Amendment 4.

Here are the vote margins in those districts (source: Ballotpedia). In the left-hand column, blue shading indicates a district won by Andrew Gillum (D) in his race for governor in 2018. (A map showing almost the same information is here.)

Even taking into account the higher expected turnout in a presidential election year, it is clear that citizens in these districts could be quite influential – if they are allowed to vote. However, the legislature has decided that they have to pay all outstanding fines. Furthermore, as ex-felons, they are likely to be very focused on not violating the law again, and don’t necessarily want any trouble with iffy voter registration. Therefore, if they want to vote again, they need both financial and legal help.

Both Democrats and Republicans ought to be interested in these close districts.

To help Democratic candidates: Within Florida, the Future Now Fund is focusing on key districts. Their Rising Tide project is a place to put resources. Thanks to Steve Hough and Margie Stein in the comment section.

A national organization, Forward Majority, is also aggressively pursuing marginal seats in state legislatures that may change control in 2020. This year they are focused on Florida and Texas.

In the comments section, Jennifer Stearns Buttrick highlights the work of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The legislature is requiring that ex-felons pay fees, fines, and restitution before they can vote. Although this is essentially a poll tax, for now it’s the law. The average fees and fines owed are around $500, and the FRRC is helping people pay those. (A small fraction of people also owe restitution, which the FRRC is not covering.) The FRRC is also offering legal assistance. You can give to them through the ActBlue thermometer on the left.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/09/moneyball-politics-florida-part-ii/feed/1Did Iowa turn Biden and Warren into longshots?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/08/sanders-v-buttigieg/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/08/sanders-v-buttigieg/#commentsSat, 08 Feb 2020 20:09:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22819Last week I pointed out three past criteria that have described the eventual nominee of either party. With the New Hampshire primary just three days away, current polls make it look like two people meet all the criteria: Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

After the fuss over difficult tabulation in the Iowa caucus, there was some question of whether it would affect the dynamics of this year’s Democratic nomination. If not, all that fried-butter-eating, or whatever it is that candidates do, would go to waste.

Now we can see the net effect, which is to make Joe Biden’s odds substantially longer.

As I mentioned, in the past, nominees of either party have hit three targets:

Top four in national surveys by the time of the Iowa caucus.

Top four finishers in Iowa.

Top two finishers in New Hampshire.

The pundit talk about Iowa being predictive leaves out the fact that when the race is close, its track record is not that great. Therefore we must count any top-four finisher as a contender.

(Note that Billionaire Mike Bloomberg is at #4 in national surveys, but he isn’t competing in Iowa or New Hampshire. If we leave him out, that puts Mayor Pete Buttigieg at #4.)

The New Hampshire primary’s not until this coming Tuesday. But at this point, the opinion polls are starting to coalesce.

If we use them to guess the top two finishers, what does it all look like in a Venn diagram?

There are two candidates in the intersection of all these sets: Senator Bernie Sanders and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. If the pattern of 2000-2016 is followed, the Democratic nominee will be one of these two.

Past processes are running more or less smoothly, in the sense that they are producing at least one viable candidate. Bloomberg might have trouble getting further traction, unless there’s some kind of deadlock where everybody turns to him. However, Warren is already available for that: preference polls indicate that she is acceptable to the highest fraction of Democratic voters.

From a pure Venn-diagrammatic point of view, the Iowa results don’t add information. But they did lead Biden and Buttigieg to switch places in the New Hampshire race. In that respect, the net effect of the Iowa caucus was to make it much harder for Joe Biden to get the nomination.

This leads to the question that’s come up in Democratic Party circles, which is whether to give such outsize influence to a state like Iowa that does not reflect the party’s diversity. It’s easy to make an argument that it would matter.

Early election results appear to give a bounce to the top 1-2 finishers, as voters in other states find out which candidates perform well in an actual election (or caucus, in Iowa’s case). If the first primary were in South Carolina and not Iowa, then presumably Joe Biden would have gotten the benefit. I would be writing about a Sanders-vs-Biden faceoff. In any event, the Iowa caucus favored the moderate liked by whites (Buttigieg) over the moderate liked by blacks (Biden) – and it’s affecting New Hampshire, a fairly predictive state.

If some other candidate eventually gets the nomination, it would identify forces not captured by the simple rule I have described. Biden had strong support in South Carolina (primary February 29), and Warren was performing in the top four in national surveys. The normal course of events at this point would be for them to decline in support. This should all become much clearer on Super Tuesday, March 3, the date of 15 more primaries nationwide.

What’s the probability of an exception to the pattern? 2000-2016 gave only 8 examples, a pretty short record. I would guess the probability of an exception (i.e. someone other than Buttigieg or Sanders) to be about 1 in 10.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/08/sanders-v-buttigieg/feed/3Virginia is for reform lovers: the committees (mostly) wrap uphttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/07/virginia-reform-update-the-committees-mostly-wrap-up/
Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:45:03 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22786This morning, the full House Privileges & Elections Committee voted to send three redistricting bills to the House floor, leaving open the two paths to reform we mentioned yesterday. These bills, as well as their Senate counterparts, will be voted on in their respective chambers next week. That means the committee process for reform is done, aside from the House’s consideration of the constitutional amendment. What a week for reform!

A quick breakdown of the votes:

Only the enabling legislation, HB758, passed through the House Committee today – overwhelmingly, by a vote of 20-1. This legislation adds fairness criteria and enhances the constitutional amendment, which Republicans support.

HB1255, a standalone bill with the same criteria as HB758, passed with a narrower vote of 14-8, with only one Republican vote in favor. This could mean that Republicans don’t favor the criteria in the enabling legislation if a commission is in charge. Or maybe they oppose anything that undermines the constitutional-amendment route.

As in the Subcommittee, Delegate Price (D)’s alternate advisory-commission bill, HB1256, passed on a party-line vote. Price’s commission process would not be binding on the General Assembly, which could still draw its own lines without input from the commission.

1) The constitutional amendment (HJ71/SJ18) and accompanying enabling legislation (HB758/SB203). This route seems to has the most bipartisan support and would bind the General Assembly in 2021 and beyond.

2) Delegate Price’s alternate, statutory commission (HB1256). Although the commission lacks final say over maps, it does include more transparency provisions, such as a higher minimum number of public hearings and a requirement to record, transcribe, and archive Commission meetings. (These could still be added to the enabling legislation through a floor amendment next week.)

The statutory route has almost entirely Democratic support and seems intended to act as a stopgap until a new redistricting constitutional amendment process is started sometime in the future…ten years from now.

These bills could be improved by having an even higher amount of data transparency. Right now, both the enabling legislation and Price’s alternate commission require that the Commission publish all redistricting data to its website and that draft maps be published on the Commission’s website “prior to voting.” For improved transparency, this could be changed to require more regular publication of draft maps – even daily! And the publication of election data for citizens’ use could happen in advance of the Commission’s work, as in New Jersey’s new law: the Voting Precinct Transparency Act. If either proposed route to reform were to include these suggestions through a floor amendment, Virginia would be a leader in redistricting transparency.

These bills will be voted on by the full House next week. The constitutional amendment (HJ71) will be voted on later this month because it is subject to a later legislative deadline in the House than other bills.

It’s been fun being back in my home state this week to watch reform move forward in the Commonwealth!

]]>Two paths, one bipartisan, emerge for redistricting reform in Virginiahttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/07/two-paths-emerge-for-redistricting-reform-in-virginia/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/07/two-paths-emerge-for-redistricting-reform-in-virginia/#respondFri, 07 Feb 2020 05:05:38 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22762Redistricting reform proposals in Virginia are starting to get sorted out. A number of bills have died. What’s left is a choice between two paths: (A) a constitutional amendment with an accompanying bill, which together create an independent commission with constraints to ensure fairness; or (B) pass a regular law to create an advisory commission, leaving final approval of redistricting plans with the General Assembly.

The constitutional route continues to advance. This afternoon, the constitutional amendment (SJ18) and accompanying enabling legislation (SB203) cleared the last hurdle, the Finance Committee, before going to the full Senate for a floor vote. Both votes were bipartisan, 15-1. It’s an exciting moment for reform in the Commonwealth!

Meanwhile, in the House of Delegates, two bills came out of the Redistricting Subcommittee; both contain fairness criteria to limit extreme plans. One is the House’s version of enabling legislation, HB758 (VanValkenburg), and is nearly identical to SB203. The other contains fairness criteria but does not require the amendment; it’s HB1255 (Price) and is the same as SB717. These steps are similar to what the Senate Privileges & Election Committee did on Tuesday. Both bills passed unanimously except for an abstention by Delegate Price on HB758, the enabling legislation. Next stop, the full House Privileges & Elections Committee.

The House still has to vote on the constitutional amendment itself (their version is called House Joint Resolution 71). Their Constitutional Amendments Subcommittee still has some time to pass a second reading of a constitutional amendment, so they can relax for a few days.

Now, why did Delegate Price abstain on HB758? Well, that leads us to…

An alternate advisory-commission route emerges. The House Subcommittee also reported out an alternate route to reform, an advisory commission (HB1256, Price). This bill passed with a party-line vote (5-3). Maybe Delegate Price is holding out for her own bill, and therefore abstained on the enabling legislation?

As amended, HB1256 takes one part of the constitutional route: a commission structure with many of the same fairness criteria. But the commission would be advisory only, and it leaves final authority with the General Assembly. As a regular law, it could be repealed by a later General Assembly. So it’s not a permanent solution.

In some ways, HB1256 is tougher than the constitutional enabling legislation: it protects diversity more strongly, and it requires that commission meetings be recorded and transcribed with archives available on a website. It also requires at least seven public hearings, compared with the enabling legislation’s three hearings.

All the other House bills basically died in subcommittee, or their sponsors agreed to sign on as co-patrons of H1255 or HB758.

Stay tuned!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/07/two-paths-emerge-for-redistricting-reform-in-virginia/feed/0Moneyball politics: Floridahttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/06/moneyball-politics-florida/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/06/moneyball-politics-florida/#commentsThu, 06 Feb 2020 09:51:30 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22735I’m in Florida at an event with Katie Fahey, founder of Voters Not Politicians! Naturally we got to talking about redistricting reform.

Here at PEC, we’ve always been looking for ways to maximize the effectiveness of people’s donations and time. That means finding interventions that move probabilities the most, while costing the least. Usually, these are races and questions that are on a knife edge.

This year is a little different because the stakes are higher: Redistricting happens in 2021, which sets the maps for the next ten years.

Therefore whoever controls state legislatures is unusually important. Up to 1/3 of the seats in a chamber are under the control of whoever holds the redistricting pen. This means that the difference between single-party control and divided government can reverberate for a decade.

At the congressional level, funding even one congressional race can cost millions of dollars. And based on a recent estimate of a congressional seat changes following the 2020 census, Florida is estimated to gain two congressional seats (for a total of 29). Let’s say that even five of Florida’s congressional seats could be competitive or safely partisan, depending on who controls the process. Funding that many races for a decade would cost $25 million or more – and if there’s a gerrymander, your money would be wasted.

Although the state Supreme Court intervened to undo gerrymanders in 2013, a repeat of that may not occur because the court has taken a strong rightward turn.

Florida’s congressional district lines are drawn by the legislature and Governor, and legislative lines by the legislature alone. The Florida House, Senate, and Governor are Republican. Control of either chamber of the Florida General Assembly is a valuable prize. The Florida House of Representatives has 73 Republicans and 47 Democrats. Between the two, the state House of Representatives is more winnable: to change partisan control, 14 out of 120 seats would have to go from Republican to Democratic control. The resulting divided government would bring bipartisan rule to the Sunshine State.

The closest 14 Republican House seats we decided by an average margin of 2,200 votes. One answer would be to focus on these races. State legislative races usually cost considerably less than congressional races. I imagine competitive campaigns could be run in all of them for a few million dollars.

Normally I’d say that 14 seats is a lot to shift. But there’s a new population of potential voters, thanks to ex-felon reenfranchisement. Last year, Amendment 4 in Florida made 1.4 million people who had served their time eligible to vote again. However, the state legislature has passed a law stipulating that they have to pay all their outstanding fines. Statewide, that’s been estimated to be over $200 million.

But what if one targeted those 14 close districts? That would be much less expensive – an average of a few hundred dollars per person. There are about 12,000 such eligible people per district. Voting rights could be fully restored in all 14 districts for under $25 million.

Those districts are equally valuable for either party. In principle, both major parties should make every effort to win them. Any money and effort spent there would be highly effective.

In a later post, I show you where those districts are. That post also identifies ways you can give (as always, links are given for Democrats, Republicans, and independents where possible.) For Democrats, suggestions are linked in the thermometer at left.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/06/moneyball-politics-florida/feed/4Newly in charge, Virginia Democrats still support redistricting reformhttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/04/newly-in-charge-virginia-democrats-still-support-redistricting-reform/
Wed, 05 Feb 2020 01:25:10 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22717Hi! I’m Aaron Barden, legal analyst for the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. I’m in Richmond following the redistricting legislation. Democrats are newly in charge of the General Assembly – and they’re still in favor of reform. Today I witnessed bipartisan action to strengthen and improve the redistricting amendment – real progress!

First, a basic review.

In 2019, the General Assembly passed a constitutional amendment to create the Virginia Redistricting Commission, a hybrid commission of 8 legislators and 8 citizens. The Republican majority, perhaps sensing potential electoral doom in the November election, may have wanted to limit future offenses. With an uncertain future, Democrats may have had a similar feeling. And so the amendment passed with a bipartisan vote.

But it’s not law yet. Under the Virginia constitution, the amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 18, has to pass again this session to get onto this November’s ballot for voters to approve. Then it’s the law.

Now that they have single-party control of government, Democrats could theoretically walk away from reform and keep all the marbles for themselves. In today’s Senate Privileges & Elections Committee hearing, here’s what they did instead.

By itself, the amendment isn’t that strong. It sets up a commission, but doesn’t limit bad partisan outcomes. It also doesn’t fully protect racial and ethnic minorities or other communities of interest. Legislators proposed a slew of “enabling legislation” to fix that.

Of all those possibilities, a Senate committee today focused on a bill listing criteria for a fair plan, SB717 (sponsor: McClellan, passed: 9-6), and a piece of enabling legislation, SB203 (Lucas, 13-2), in addition to the second reading of the constitutional amendment (Barker, 13-1). These are good bills.

SB203 (which is identical to HB758 in the other chamber) is enabling legislation, i.e. it is meant to be implemented specifically if the constitutional amendment is approved by voters. It requires commissioners to be diverse, lack conflicts of interest, and apply for the position. There must be public hearings, a Commission website, and publication of precinct maps/election results & shapefiles. Importantly, SB203 repairs an objection by Democrats that a deadlock gets turfed to the state Supreme Court. That was claimed to be a problem because it might give the Court free rein. SB203 says that if a deadlock occurs, legislative leaders will send names of candidate special masters to the Court, who will pick two masters, one from each party.

In addition, SB203 contains fairness criteria – criteria that govern the district map that the Commission would produce. These criteria would protect communities of color through language similar to the Voting Rights Act, which means no matter what the Supreme Court does nationally, Virginia voters will still be protected. SB203 also protects communities of interest, a broad category that includes cultural groups as well as other groups (for example, job sectors or shared environmental concerns). Prisoners will be counted at home, meaning no more prison gerrymandering. And, super-important – SB203 prohibits partisanship on a statewide basis! That’s very reminiscent of tests we’ve proposed at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

All of these were part of SB203 as passed by a bipartisan vote. However, there’s the possibility that the fairness criteria will be revisited by floor action – meaning they could be stripped out. That would be a setback, and one that reformers should watch out for.

>>>

SB717 is interesting – it contains the same fairness criteria as SB203, but is standalone legislation. In other words, it doesn’t require the constitutional amendment in order to have force. It passed by a party-line vote. That could mean that Republicans prefer not to have the fairness criteria or to count prisoners in their home communities. It could also mean that they want to make sure any fairness criteria are only passed in conjunction with a Commission.

The story isn’t over yet. Next, the amendment and SB203 will go to the Senate Finance Committee. Then all three will go to the full Senate before crossing over to the House of Delegates. There are many steps ahead…but early indications are that redistricting reform is alive and kicking in the Old Dominion!

]]>How predictive is the Iowa caucus? 2020 editionhttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/how-predictive-is-the-iowa-caucus-2020-edition/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/how-predictive-is-the-iowa-caucus-2020-edition/#commentsMon, 03 Feb 2020 16:10:11 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22655(Update, Tuesday February 4th 7:45pm: With Iowa returns finally becoming available, it looks like the top four are the same as what I wrote about below. So this post can be read exactly the same – no modification necessary!)

National surveys and the Iowa caucus aren’t that predictive of a close Presidential nomination race. But the Iowa caucus does drive coverage in the days before the New Hampshire primary, where either the #1 or #2 finisher has gotten the nomination every time over the last 20 years.

Based on analysis of past data – national, Iowa, and New Hampshire – it appears that the nominee will be Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren (and maybe Pete Buttigieg.) That’s the case almost no matter what happens in Iowa tonight, though of course Warren has the most to gain or lose.

And unless past patterns from 2000-2016 get upended, other candidates seem to be out of the money. They may, however, have substantial influence which of those three people the nominee is.

Four years ago, I pointed out the degree to which national, Iowa, and New Hampshire advance polls could predict a major party’s Presidential nominee. The verdict then was Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R), and it was clear as of early January.

Back then, I reasoned that election results can be close, by a few points. Combined with polling errors, where parametric approaches (i.e. calculating means, medians, standard deviations, regressions, and so on) may be of limited use, I suggested looking at the data to ask a simpler question: what does current polling rank predict about the nominee?

This year I’m a little late out of the gate since the Iowa caucus is tonight (February 3) and the New Hampshire primary is in eight days, February 11. So I’ll update the table from 2016 to reflect the actual winner of the caucus. The New Hampshire data will be left as pre-primary polls.

Twenty years of primary campaigns (2000 to 2016) show a pattern: in both parties, the eventual nominee always finished in the top two in New Hampshire, and was usually in the top two nationally and in Iowa. Six out of eight nominees, or 0.75 of them, fit the pattern. Here is the data:

For national polls, I show late-December/early-January polls. The “#1-#2 lead” column shows the median difference between the #1 and #2 national candidates. Where New Hampshire polling data was missing, the nominee’s final election outcome is given in parentheses.

In nearly all cases, the eventual nominee has gotten enough attention and support to finish in the top two in all three categories. In this data set, the eventual nominee was at #4 twice, #2 four times, and at #1 sixteen times.

However, things break down when the race is close. The table is arranged in descending order of national margin. Although the Democratic and Republican races in 2000 were nominally open, each had a clear national leader: Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Now focus on Iowa. For races where the national #1-vs-#2 margin was less than 15 percentage points, the caucus is much less predictive. The nominee has always been in the top four finishers – but he/she hasn’t necessarily won (McCain being the outlier).

Let’s look at the 2020 campaign. Here are current standings for Democratic candidates:

In national surveys, this year the top four are Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Bloomberg.

For Iowa, as of today’s final surveys, the top two are Sanders and Biden (near-tied), followed by Buttigieg and Warren (again near-tied).

The intersection of these national-poll-based and Iowa-based datasets is Biden, Sanders, and Warren. So I reckon it will be one of those three. (Or perhaps Pete Buttigieg – he’s at #5 nationally because of the massive ad campaign that has moved Mike Bloomberg to #4.) Of course, this will all have to be revisited after tonight’s results in Iowa.

Finally, one note. Generally, finishing in the top-two nationally and in Iowa has been enough. But since both Biden and Sanders meet that criterion, the rule has to fail at least once this year. Based purely on the data above, New Hampshire will be make-or-break for both of them.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/how-predictive-is-the-iowa-caucus-2020-edition/feed/6Will Virginia legislators put teeth in redistricting reform?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/reform-in-the-balance-whats-happening-in-virginia-this-week/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/reform-in-the-balance-whats-happening-in-virginia-this-week/#commentsMon, 03 Feb 2020 11:18:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22679In 1789, Virginia was the site of the first gerrymander – even before the word “gerrymander” was coined. Now the Virginia General Assembly has a chance to take a big step toward doing away with gerrymanders entirely. Whether they do depends some complex negotiations taking place this week. Based on the Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s detailed look at all the bills, those negotiations have the potential to turn out very well indeed.

First, some background (it’s all in our new report!). The main route to reform is a state constitutional amendment. The amendment already passed once in 2019, at a time when Republicans realized they might lose their majorities. According to Virginia law, the G.A. has to pass the amendment one more time before it can go to voters for final approval this November. The General Assembly is considering the amendment this week.

The amendment covers some key basics. It shares the redistricting power between legislator-commissioners and citizen-commissioners. For plans to pass a supermajority is required, and members of both parties must approve. Those are great! However, the amendment doesn’t list standards that the commission must meet.

This week, the General Assembly has a chance to lay down those standards. The chart above summarizes all the bills introduced to supplement the constitutional amendment. (A few bills are designed to replace the amendment in case it doesn’t pass.) The bills cover key provisions, like making sure communities of interest (racial, ethnic, other) get represented, and preventing undue favor to any political party.

We think some provisions are especially important. For example, having a public website and public hearings (Delegate Price’s HB1256 calls for 13 hearings!). An essential provision is public data release, which will help watchdog and reform organizations monitor the process. We already maintain such data at OpenPrecincts.org…but imagine if we didn’t have to dig it out, like we did last year. A public-data requirement passed into law here in New Jersey just last month.

On top of all this, we’d love to see a rule that requires the commission to make its draft maps publicly available in digital form at the end of every day. If that were added, it would boost citizen power enormously.

This week would be a great time for Virginians to tell legislators to vote for the redistricting reform amendment- and to pass enabling legislation. Call your delegate and state senator!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/02/03/reform-in-the-balance-whats-happening-in-virginia-this-week/feed/1Close races taking shape in 2020: Senate control in play?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/16/22667/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/16/22667/#commentsFri, 17 Jan 2020 01:16:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22667Graphed by Ben Rosenblatt, here are the top 10 most-popular and bottom 10 least-popular Senators, as measured by Morning Consult. Notably, five of the bottom six are up for re-election this November – and all are Republicans.

These five races would seem to present some ripe opportunities – potentially enough to switch control of the chamber. Democrats need to pick up a net three seats – that’s assuming they win the Presidency. If they don’t win the Presidency, there’s no way they will pick up seats, since Presidential and Senate voting are so correlated these days. Since Doug Jones (D-AL) has a tough slog, probably they need to pick up four.

As the campaign heats up, I’ll do what I’ve done in previous years: point out close races where your efforts make the greatest marginal difference. We’ll do Senate and House races. We’ll also expand to state legislative races. Democrats and Republicans will be fighting it out in close states, including Kansas, Texas, Minnesota, and more. The opportunites are the same for both sides, since knife-edge races are the ones where your effort makes the most difference.

Stay tuned!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/16/22667/feed/3The Hofeller documentshttp://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/13/the-hofeller-documents/
http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/13/the-hofeller-documents/#respondMon, 13 Jan 2020 20:23:30 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22663All 33,261 of Thomas Hofeller’s documents were made available online last week. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is taking a close look at the files for lessons on what to do, what not to do, and what’s needed for expert districting, both fair and otherwise. The original archive has been taken down, and alternative mirrors are available at the following links:

Are you looking too? We’re especially interested in AI-driven indexing. Email redistricting@princeton.edu to get in touch!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/13/the-hofeller-documents/feed/0Will Democrats keep their reform promise in Virginia?http://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/02/will-democrats-keep-their-reform-promise-in-virginia/
Thu, 02 Jan 2020 15:36:59 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22646Last year in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass redistricting reform. Now they have to pass it again. But some Democrats appear to be waffling. Today in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, I argue for a way forward. Read on! Also, read our Voter’s Guide To Redistricting Reform in Virginia.
]]>Princeton Gerrymandering Project – 2019, in Reviewhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/12/31/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-the-year-in-review-2019/
Tue, 31 Dec 2019 14:46:42 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22629What a year (and what a decade) it was for gerrymandering. It was also a pivotal year for the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, as we adapted to the next stage of redistricting reform. Even as we have grown, we’re still using law, math, and data to help power change. But we have now made our focus local, with a state-by-state approach to fair districting.

In an engineering sense, gerrymandering is a feedback loop in which legislators draw themselves into power for a decade – which they can do again and again. I’m more optimistic than I have been in years that we can address the problem. Here’s how my team at Princeton is providing tools to help break the feedback loop.

In January, we released our Citizen’s Guide for Redistricting in Michigan, which provided analysis and guidance for Michigan’s new independent redistricting commission. This was presented to the Secretary of State of Michigan and Voters Not Politicians in January, Our guide was used by the Secretary to prepare and develop the application process for selecting the commission.

On the East Coast, around the same time, the Bethune-Hill racial gerrymandering case in Virginia heated up. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gathered, processed, and mapped precinct-level election results for this major case, which led to the redrawing of one-third of the state legislative districts. We published our dataset at OpenPrecincts.org, which allowed for MGGG’s analysis and more of our own. We also maintained a digital map viewing tool, which allowed users to see all maps that were relevant to the case. This tool helped citizens of Virginia explore how the electoral lines were affecting them, and gave them the power to easily compare different plans. Our analysis was even used by the Special Master to support his work.

All of this work paid off in November. With a fairer map, the General Assembly reflected the wishes of the voters, and gave a solid governing majority to Democrats. Up ahead, that majority must now pass a redistricting reform amendment, which had bipartisan support in 2019. If legislators pass the amendment again in 2020 (a necessary step), our Voter’s Guide to Redistricting in Virginia recommends enabling legislation to make the amendment succeed better.

Precinct-level data is central to giving citizens full access to redistricting. In May we unveiled OpenPrecincts.org, a central, accessible web resource for the redistricting reform community to visualize and download precinct data. OpenPrecincts has a dozen states so far, with more on the way in 2020. Part of developing OpenPrecincts was designing a universal data format that fits the needs of users and developers. We released our OpenPrecincts Data Schema in September, and we are working to perfect it and expand its use.

After meeting many great collaborators on OpenPrecincts, we decided to host a summit to bring them together in person to solve problems and coordinate. In May, our Mapping and Programming Summit (MAPS) was both enjoyable and productive. In 2020 we’ll have more gatherings at Princeton as Census and redistricting deadlines heat up.

In June, the Supreme Court let the nation down by declaring partisan gerrymandering claims to be outside the reach of federal courts. We responded with a deep dive into state constitutions and case law to find state-level routes to redistricting reform. Call it voting-rights federalism. Our approach appears in a law review article which will soon be published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. And we’ve linked it to data analytics, for which we won first prize from Common Cause in a contest held last year.

Here at home in New Jersey, we continued our push against bad “reform.” After helping in 2018 to put the brakes on proposed legislation that would have locked in an advantage for the majority, we joined with other leading academics to put out a best-practices report on how to bring real reform to the Garden State.

In the fall we became engaged in redistricting action in North Carolina as both General Assembly and Congressional maps were redrawn under court order. We helped journalists understand the technical aspects of the map drawing process and map analysis. We’re preparing a Journalist’s Guide to Covering Redistricting in North Carolina. We were helped by interns from N.C. State University and contacts in the reform community, and learned the importance of local networks in driving change. In 2020, a top priority for us will be assisting those networks of reformers and journalists as they get stronger.

We’re pleased to congratulate team members who have moved on to new adventures – and welcome new team members whose talents match our growing needs. Will Adler, the Project’s key statistical analyst since 2017, is now working on oversight for Elizabeth Warren’s Senate staff as a Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Ben Williams, who managed our group and provided legal analysis for over a year, is now a Policy Specialist for Elections and Redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislators. James Turk, our software architect who developed the OpenPrecincts infrastructure, has returned to his long-term project, OpenStates.

In 2020, we’re moving forward strongly with four new team members. Hope Johnson is our new analyst and data journalist. Aaron Barden is our new legal and policy analyst. Jason Rhode is our new outreach coordinator. And Andrew Milich is a visiting associate product manager from Schmidt Futures. They join project coordinator Hannah Wheelen and keep the Princeton Gerrymandering Project going. Finally, I can’t forget our funders who make it all possible: Schmidt Futures, the Marilyn J. Simons Foundation, Bob and Lynn Johnston, and many other donors. Thank you!

Keep an eye out for more updates during 2020, as we continue to move the needle on redistricting reform across the country. We’d love to hear from you – write us at gerrymander@princeton.edu. (And you can support us by donating here.)

Happy New Year!

]]>What North Carolina’s redistricting cases suggest for 2021 strategyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/12/08/what-north-carolinas-redistricting-cases-suggest-for-2021-strategy/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/12/08/what-north-carolinas-redistricting-cases-suggest-for-2021-strategy/#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2019 03:57:11 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22617Like many of you, I followed the North Carolina redistricting court cases of the last two months with great attention. I would characterize them as partial successes – but with important lessons for the future.

Plaintiffs and their allies have painted the Congressional map approved by the court as a defeat. I think that’s wrong by at least half. Look at the range of possibilities. Since 2008, the state wide vote in North Carolina has been reasonably closely divided but elected a Congressional delegation anywhere from 8 Democrats, 5 Republicans to most recent gerrymander, 10 Republicans, 3 Democrats. The midpoint in this range would be seven or eight Republicans – and the map approved by the court is likely to elect 8 Republicans. If we see an equitable outcome as seven Republicans, then 2/3 of the gerrymandered advantage is gone. That’s mostly a win in my book.

However, the congressional redistricting process took placelargely behind closed doors, with little citizen input. The Court noted the imperfections of the process, but allowed the map to be used in order to prevent delays in the congressional primaries scheduled for March 3rd next year. They qualified their decision by saying the state legislative and congressional maps will be replaced following the 2020 census.

What will stop the “not enough time to redraw” argument from reappearing in 2021? In the Raleigh’s News & Observer last week we argued that the solution is a combination of citizens on the ground, and data on communities of interest. The laws of over twenty states urge redistricting to honor “communities of interest” when drawing lines. Communities of interest are defined as groups of people who share similar interests, and who may be affected in special ways by legislation. These interests can be racial, ethnic, religious, social, cultural, or economic, and North Carolina law explicitly requires state legislative district take these communities into account.

For example, the remedial Congressional map’s Districts 8 and 9 split the Sandhills, a region in southern central North Carolina. This split, which joins part of the Sandhills with part of Charlotte 150 miles to the west, appears to be designed to dilute Democrats’ voting power to make a safely Republican Xth District.

Citizens can and should tell legislators about these communities. A new set of online, digital tools can facilitate this process. Here at Princeton, our students are developing Representable.org, an easy way for citizens to draw and upload their communities. The Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group is also developing such a tool. Once a state has a database of many communities, honoring those communities can dilute the partisanship that dominated last month’s process – and leave legislators with no excuse for ignoring their constituents.

The Congressional map is important for representation in Washington DC. But even more important for North Carolina’ future is legislative redistricting. When state legislators draw themselves safe districts and near-certain victories, they then have line-drawing power over the following decade. Such a process creates a positive feedback loop of self-sustaining power. By breaking this cycle, fair districting makes government answerable to voters.

For 2021, perhaps most important of all will be the need for citizens to mount as rapid a response as possible. Redistricting and lawsuits are a maddening combination of fast and slow: too fast for citizens to weigh in, yet takes so long to play out that there’s not enough time to put in a fair map for the next election. Our hope is that the tools we are developing at Princeton will be used by local networks of reform organizations, citizens, and journalists to tell stories and give rapid feedback to legislators. Technology can help citizens bring about fair districting, not just in North Carolina but in every state.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/12/08/what-north-carolinas-redistricting-cases-suggest-for-2021-strategy/feed/3Lessons from 2016 and application to 2020http://election.princeton.edu/2019/11/24/thoughts-on-lessons-from-2016-and-applying-them-to-2020/
Sun, 24 Nov 2019 19:23:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22612For his piece on polling in the New York Times, Giovanni Russonello contacted me with questions about what went wrong in my 2016 analysis. Our starting point: my Election Eve estimate that Hillary Clinton’s Meta-Margin of +1.1% led to a 93% probability.

The simple answer is that I underestimated the minimum uncertainty in state polls, at less than 1.0 percentage point. This was a holdover from the calculation script, which I set up in May 2016 and neglected to revisit. By the time October rolled around it seemed inappropriate to change it suddenly.

My email to him is reproduced, with slight edits, after the jump.
Dear Gio,

To be completely honest I am far less interested in poll aggregation this year. I think there is an unhealthy fascination with horserace in the press. This attention would better be spent focusing on policies and substance. Ironically, I started doing aggregation in 2004 to reduce attention to polls.

I am far more interested in optimal resource allocation to help citizens be effective locally, in states and districts. I think citizen action is much more interesting than poll-based punditry. My first big change is to shift focus to states and districts.

Now, here is the direct answer to your question:

My method is pretty simple and has very few moving parts. I basically estimate the distribution of all possible electoral college outcomes, using state polls and rules of compound probability. My fundamental change is to build in a hard floor to the amount of overall uncertainty in those polls. It involves changing one line of code.

Opinion polls have two kinds of uncertainty. The first arises from the fact that even if your sample is representative of the voting population, you didn’t talk to everyone and so your estimate of what happens on Election Day will be a little off. That is called “sampling error.” When many polls are put together, it’s surprisingly small, a fraction of a percentage point.

The second kind of uncertainty is called “systematic error” by physical scientists. It refers to the fact that the entire set of measurements might be off by some amount. It’s like a scale that reads some nonzero number even when there’s nothing on it. In 2016, that systematic error was about two percentage points, and it was greatest in Republican and swing states such as Wisconsin.

There’s one line in my script that specifies this systematic error. In 2016, I set it to less than 1 percentage point, which was a mistake (frankly, in spring 2016 this did not seem like the critical assumption). In 2020, I’ll set it to two percentage points. That will increase the uncertainty much more, which will set expectations appropriately in case the election is close. For example, in 2016 this would have set Hillary Clinton’s win probability to 68%, which seems about right.

The rest is up to the pollsters, who are continually working hard to improve their methods. We all depend on their efforts.

Warm regards,

Sam Wang

>>>

Giovanni Russello wrote:

Hi Dr. Wang –

I hope this finds you well. I’m working on a story on polling in 2016 — particularly those famous miscues! — and how pollsters and forecasters are adjusting as we look ahead to 2020.

Our co-hosts are New Jersey’s League of Women Voters and Fair Districts NJ. Helen Kioukis of Fair Districts NJ told us: “As we continue advocating for state-level redistricting reform and fair maps for New Jersey residents, we are excited for the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of the California Commissioners and encourage public engagement in the redistricting process.”

Over a two-day period, the Commissioners are traveling across New Jersey to discuss the importance of community-centric redistricting reform and share their experiences as ordinary residents selected to draw California’s new district maps. The Princeton town hall is a crucial stop in the California tour.

]]>What’s at stake next week in Virginia: Redistricting Reformhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/26/whats-at-stake-next-week-in-virginia-permanent-redistricting-reform/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/26/whats-at-stake-next-week-in-virginia-permanent-redistricting-reform/#respondSat, 26 Oct 2019 16:41:08 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22582Virginia was the site of the first gerrymander in 1789. Now, Virginia voters get a chance to help make today’s maps the last gerrymander that the Old Dominion ever sees. Before next week’s elections, ask candidates to support reform. To help, Princeton Gerrymandering Project has a new report.

PGP’s new report describes how gerrymandering can be stopped by an amendment to the state constitution. The next step is for the General Assembly to pass it (for a second time) in January 2020. Then, if voters approve it in November 2020, it would lead to the formation of a Virginia Redistricting Commission that would give citizens a seat at the table for redistricting in 2021 and beyond.

Virginian can weigh in with their legislators to let them know how important reform is. They should also pass enabling legislation to help the commission succeed – by making sure it represents diverse interests in the state and by setting rules that will make sure all communities are treated fairly.

We hope you find this report helpful. Use it to inform your neghbors and legislative candidates!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/26/whats-at-stake-next-week-in-virginia-permanent-redistricting-reform/feed/0Harvard Law School panel on Electoral Collegehttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/19/harvard-law-school-panel-on-electoral-college/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/19/harvard-law-school-panel-on-electoral-college/#respondSat, 19 Oct 2019 13:11:30 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22569Great conference today on the Electoral College, hosted by the Harvard Law and Policy Review. An all-star cast – see the schedule! Also livecast here.

My slides are available in PDF format here. Some of my marginal notes here.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/19/harvard-law-school-panel-on-electoral-college/feed/0Making Every Vote Count: How Would Electoral College Reform Change Campaigns?http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/07/making-every-vote-count-how-would-electoral-college-reform-change-campaigns/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/07/making-every-vote-count-how-would-electoral-college-reform-change-campaigns/#commentsMon, 07 Oct 2019 15:12:53 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22558Today I was on a panel with Steve Clemons of The Hill, Amanda Iovino, and Mark Penn on Electoral College reform. Interesting discussion. It was on C-SPAN Radio, and you can watch the full video here on Facebook Live. It may be broadcast on C-SPAN later.

A later panel had some excellent guests: Jesse Wegman of the New York Times, who has a book on Electoral College reform coming out soon; Norm Ornstein; and Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee. And Nellie Gorbea, Secretary of State of Rhode Island, spoke.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/10/07/making-every-vote-count-how-would-electoral-college-reform-change-campaigns/feed/2Princeton Gerrymandering Project Brief in Common Cause v Lewis: Evaluating the North Carolina Remedial Mapshttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/27/princeton-gerrymandering-project-brief-in-common-cause-v-lewis-evaluating-the-remedial-maps/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/27/princeton-gerrymandering-project-brief-in-common-cause-v-lewis-evaluating-the-remedial-maps/#commentsFri, 27 Sep 2019 19:29:38 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22545Today the Princeton Gerrymandering Project filed an amicus brief in which we evaluated the North Carolina General Assembly’s remedial maps. The maps were submitted to the Superior Court as part of the Court’s order to undo a partisan gerrymander of the state Senate and House. I’ve written previously about the House and Senate plans. Our amicus brief goes into more detail, county cluster by county cluster.

The brief is here (and errata to correct a few errors here). We’ll post supporting files from this link once they are cleaned up.

This was a group effort – many thanks to Aaron Barden, Hannah Wheelen, and Hope Johnston on the PGP team. The analytics were a PGP-PlanScore collaboration. Finally, a big shout out of thanks to Press Millen, our counsel in North Carolina!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/27/princeton-gerrymandering-project-brief-in-common-cause-v-lewis-evaluating-the-remedial-maps/feed/3On WUNC’s The State Of Thingshttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/18/on-wuncs-the-state-of-things/
Wed, 18 Sep 2019 17:31:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22540Yesterday I was on WUNC-FM’s The State Of Things to talk about the remaining unfairness in the maps passed by the North Carolina House and Senate. Take a listen! I come on around the 4:15 mark.
]]>The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is hiring – Senior Developer *and* Frontend Part-Time Jobhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/16/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-is-hiring-senior-developer/
Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:34:57 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22524American democracy is changing in ways that we have not seen before in our lifetimes. If you’d like help stop some of the worst offenses, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project has two opportunities for you!

1. We’re hiring an experienced full-stack engineer (job posting here) to help our team build tools to fight gerrymandering. The person in this role will be an engineer that leads the development of our tools and websites. They will work closely with our data and policy experts as we build OpenPrecincts.org, a repository of precinct-level geographies linked with census and voting information, as well as other tools. The ideal candidate will be very experienced in Python, and isn’t afraid of tackling front-end code either.

This position is full-time for a year, renewable for a second year. We prefer candidates to relocate to the Princeton area, a great place to live. To apply, please send an email describing interest and a current CV/resume to gerrymander [at] princeton [dot] edu.

2. We’re also hiring for a short-term project to revamp gerrymander.princeton.edu. Posting is here.

Pass it on!

]]>Suggestions for a fair redistricting process (contains no partisan data)http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/16/analysis-of-the-north-carolina-redistricting-process-contains-no-partisan-data/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/16/analysis-of-the-north-carolina-redistricting-process-contains-no-partisan-data/#respondMon, 16 Sep 2019 13:41:16 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22499Carolina legislators have an unusual task: they are instructed by the Superior Court to undo a partisan gerrymander, but they are not allowed to use partisan voting data. Here are some suggestions for carrying out this task successfully.

Don’t start with random maps. (In the case of North Carolina this ship already sailed. But it would be part of best practices in the future.) Natural geography works against treating the two parties equally. If you pick boundaries at random, requiring only that minimal criteria like population equality and compact shapes are met, you will generally end up with a Republican-leaning map.

It’s not just that urban areas vote Democratic. It’s that they do so monolithically – at higher percentages than rural areas vote Republican. In addition, there is a subtle point: city boundaries contain the vestiges of racial segregation. When a city has the option of incorporating an outlying region or not, race is often a factor in the decision. By using a city boundary, one is often also segregating by race.

The redistricting committees, which are controlled by Republicans, wanted to start with randomly generated maps. They had data on the properties of these plans. that such maps favored their own party on average. (see Plaintiff Exhibit 10 of N.C. Superior Court decision)

Seemingly neutral rules contain implicit judgments about what’s a good value to pursue – “algorithmic bias.” The use of a random selection of Chen’s maps implicitly says that compact shapes are more important than treating the major parties equally, or attending to the needs of specific communities.

However, some of the maps don’t have as much bias – so it is still possible to observe those rules, yet also look after communities. That requires human input.

Whatever maps you start with, take into account communities of interest. It is well known that neighborhoods and communities have shared interests. Redistricters have a responsibility to make sure those interests are looked after. And nothing in the court order prevents doing this.

It is said that “communities of interest” are a hard-to-define concept. This is true, but it doesn’t relieve the responsibility of redistricters to consider them! To read more about communities of interest, see the explainer we wrote in our Guide to Michigan Redistricting.

A randomly generated line can slice a community in two, just like an unwanted superhighway. It is important to prevent such lines from cutting communities up.

Lines can also throw together communities by chance. You wouldn’t put one pair of pants on your left leg, and another pair on your right leg!

To pick an example, Guilford and Randolph Counties are the site of Senate districts 26 and 27. At their boundary is High Point, an urban community that isn’t much like Randolph County. But some of it probably needs to be paired, because of contiguity requirements. The question is: which parts?

(Side note: the Court said voting district FEN1 in the far southeast of district 27 can’t be altered because it was added to the district by the special master. Otherwise, almost all of High Point could go in the 27th. Unless the Court decides otherwise, neighboring district 24 can’t be used to change district 27.)

Prevent inadvertent racial bias. Because ethnic-minority groups often vote differently from nearby ethnic-majority groups, representing them is tricky. Split the minority community up, and it has no chance at electing a representative. Pack it into a single district, and it loses the chance to have a say elsewhere. Treating a group fairly requires a careful balance.

You have to make a value judgment on the relative importance you assign to compactness, making sure groups gain at least some representation, and whether to maximize the number of seats that a particular group ends up getting.

Here are some simple rules of thumb.

Where there is racial polarization, a black population of 37-49% empowers representation. In expert testimony provided in the recent Virginia Bethune-Hill racial gerrymandering case, Prof. Moon Duchin showed that in districts that were able to elect Democratic representatives, a black population of 37% was always enough to elect a representative of their choice.

37% is not a fixed threshold – it depends a lot on the politics and priorities of neighboring communities. With recent trends of suburban and exurban politics, those communities sometimes align with communities of color and the threshold is lower. In extremely polarized regions, the threshold is higher. The amount of alignment affects the exact threshold for avoiding racial bias, whether purposeful or inadvertent.

Anyway, if the black population falls a little below this range, it may be worth scrutinizing the boundaries. And don’t send a boundary down the middle of a community to make two districts with far smaller fractions of black citizens.

Majority-black districts are no longer necessary for effective representation. In decades past, it was considered necessary to draw majority-black districts in order to guarantee representation. With recent trends in crossover voting, however, such majority-minority districts are no longer necessary for minorities to effectively participate in the political process.

Recently, majority-black districts were a telltale sign of a racial gerrymander in the federal Bethune-Hill case. In that case, 11 out of 12 districts were drawn to have a 55% black voting age population (BVAP), but it would have been possible to draw 15 black-opportunity districts. Because the legislators had used an excessively high BVAP quota, the map was redrawn.

In short, overpacking of black voters leads to lopsided wins that artificially reduce their opportunities to gain fair representation.

In some areas, drawing reasonable boundaries inevitably leads to majority-black districts. But the argument that such lines are necessary to comply with federal law goes against current constitutional interpretation if the focus on race plays an unconstitutionally large role in the line-drawing.

Finally, Blake Esselstyn has drawn nice maps of the regions to be redrawn. These show the districts in violation of state law:

The Senate remedial map, as passed by the entire chamber (“Consensus v3”), is reminiscent of the House map in its character. It has less partisan skew – but some still remains.

PlanScore [2018 map] [Remedial] [Consensus v3] is currently using a 2016/2018 model in which the statewide vote is 52% Republican, 48% Democratic. As I did for the House calculations, I have adjusted PlanScore’s estimated Total D/R seats to reflect a split vote of 50% R/50% D.
If the statewide vote were perfectly divided, it would elect 23 Democrats and 27 Republicans. So there’s still some partisan advantage to Republicans in the plan.

I can think of two reasons why the Senate was relatively successful in removing bias. One is bipartisan cooperation, since this map had input from members of both parties. Another reason is technical: with fewer boundaries, there are fewer opportunities to commit gerrymandering offenses.

In several places the remedial map has rearranged minority voters to give them more opportunities to elect members of their choice. However, there is one notable exception.

The remedial map unpacks minorities from Districts 15, 32, and 37. In these regions, substantial numbers of whites vote in alignment with blacks, and placing blacks there in high percentages is not necessary for them to elect candidates of their choice. The remedial map spreads black voters from these districts into neighboring districts, giving them broader influence.

However, District 11 poses an opposite problem. It’s in Johnston County, which is part of a six-county cluster flagged by the Court:
Johnston County has about 200,000 people, similar to the average population of a Senate district – but because of its location it has to be split. The proposed new Senate District 11 (shown in red) is 30.3% black (partisan data is in the PlanScore model).

Johnston County is changing: its northwest border includes the growing exurbs surrounding Raleigh, such as Clayton. Meantime, more eastern communities such as Hares Crossroads, Shoeheel, and Moores Chapel would probably feel better represented in the 10th District (the one with the two horns, shown at left in pink). Appropriate adjustments could increase the black population in the 11th District, a change that would make the district more competitive, and also help bring the statewide map into better overall balance.

How much higher would the percentage of black voters need to be? An expert report by Moon Duchin in the Bethune-Hill racial gerrymandering case showed that in opportunity-to-elect districts nationwide, 37% was enough to make the minority group’s vote determinative. However, the exact target is not known. Calculating it would require information about partisan voting habits in the region – which legislators are not allowed to use.

(Feel free to comment on Johnston County neighborhoods in comments. All I really know about that area is that it has great barbecue and ham.)

>>>

Finally, a word about the partisan metrics. The three metrics describe different features of the plans.

The sharp reduction in efficiency gap indicates a decrease in wasted votes, defined as either massive wins (packed districts) or close losses (cracked districts). This is reflected in the reduced difference between average Democratic wins and average Republican wins. By these measures, the parties would be treated more equitably than under the gerrymander.

Despite its generic name, partisan bias is a technical measure that describes deviations from a 50-50 split in power if the vote is split 50-50. It is useful in a closely divided state like North Carolina. Again, the decline is sharp.

The same is true for the mean-median difference, which compares the median district with the statewide average vote. Some difference is expected from the way voters arrange themselves. (It is possible to estimate the built-in geographic advantage by calculating the mean-median difference for counties and precincts. I will save that for another day.)

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/15/the-north-carolina-senate-remedial-map-shows-reduced-bias-but-may-have-a-voting-rights-act-compliance-issue/feed/3North Carolina’s new House plan still has at least half the partisan skew of the gerrymandered maphttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/14/north-carolinas-new-house-plan-contains-over-half-as-much-partisanship-as-the-original-gerrymander/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/14/north-carolinas-new-house-plan-contains-over-half-as-much-partisanship-as-the-original-gerrymander/#commentsSat, 14 Sep 2019 19:31:35 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22405(Links: shapefiles, PlanScore, spreadsheet of analytics, and DRA)

A three-judge state court in North Carolina has ordered that both House and Senate legislative maps, which it identified as a partisan gerrymander, must be redrawn by next Wednesday. Last night the House took a step toward meeting that deadline – but the handiwork so far (shown above) still contains enough partisanship to raise an eyebrow.

On Friday night, the state House voted on a remedial legislative map to oversee its own members’ districts. To become law, it also has to pass the Senate. (Under North Carolina law, the governor has no say in the plan, making the state unusually vulnerable to single-party manipulation of the redistricting process.) If passed, the plan will go to a court-appointed special master for evaluation – and possible redrawing, if he finds that the General Assembly’s map is insufficient.

Here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, we have noticed algorithmic biases in the process used to generate the remedial map. Using the PlanScore.org engine and additional analysis, we furthermore find that the map still contains between one-half and two-thirds of the partisan advantage that was present in the illegal gerrymander.

The first step in drawing the remedial House map (as well as the Senate map, which is not done yet), was to select it on Thursday, bit by bit, from a lottery machine. This act of showmanship caught people’s attention and was criticized. But the showmanship hides a deeper problem. The real issue is whether the balls that were put into the lottery machine were fair in the first place. To make an analogy to card games, a stacked deck can’t produce a fair deal. And I have some questions about the deck.

This remedial map is a composite of seven maps obtained from Jowei Chen, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who served as an expert witness in the case. The maps were drawn according to an algorithm programmed by him, selected from a group of 1,000 randomly-generated maps on the basis of overall statewide scores of geometry. Why seven? The House committee used one map for each of the seven county clusters that the Court identified as illegally drawn.

Chen’s algorithm chugs along, building districts from chunks of counties and cities. It doesn’t ask whether communities of interest are kept together. It produces a few thousand plans, which pales in comparison with faster and more sophisticated map-drawing approaches that explore millions or billions of possibilities (see Auto-Redistrict, as well as work by Wesley Pegden, Kosuke Imai, Moon Duchin, Jonathan Mattingly, and others). However, Chen’s maps have the advantage that they were used by the Court to create a baseline of expectations for what a blind procedure would do.

But a blind procedure can contain algorithmic bias, a well-known risk in modern computing. This automatic drawing procedure tends to favor Republicans, not only because cities are packed with Democrats, but also because cities vote more lopsidedly for Democrats than rural areas vote for Republicans in rural areas. So a the algorithm tends to pack Democrats.

Humans could easily avoid this pitfall – which one might think the Court wanted the legislature to do. Indeed, the Court instructed the legislature to draw lines from scratch. An algorithm with hidden biases most definitely does not start from scratch.

In a map biased by the algorithm’s rules, a majority vote for Democrats could easily elect a majority of Republicans. That only happens in close elections – but North Carolina is a closely divided state, and closely divided states are where partisans can gain the most by committing a gerrymander.

Here is how the plans perform according to PlanScore’s model based on 2016 Presidential vote and 2018 state House elections. (PlanScore’s model gives a statewide vote of 52% Republican, 48% Democratic; I have corrected the seat count to reflect an equally divided 50%-50% vote).

Broadly speaking, the remedial plans are an improvement over existing maps. But as measured by PlanScore metrics, one-half to two-thirds of the 2018 plan’s partisan asymmetry remains. Or to put it conversely, partisan gerrymandering considerably amplifies the natural effects of geography.

But the average effects of blind geography can also be prevented. Think back to the remedial Congressional map put into place in Pennsylvania in 2018, in which the gerrymandered Congressional delegation was 13 Republicans, 5 Democrats, but the redrawn map elected 9 Republicans and 9 Democrats – and was still compact in appearance and pleasing to the eye.

There is another problem: The map chosen by the General Assembly might not look after minority representation. In North Carolina, blacks are a substantial minority, comprising 22% of the population. In such a significant population, it might be desirable to make sure they have adequate opportunities to elect legislators that reflect their priorities.

As a rough measure of opportunity-to-elect districts, I counted the number of districts with at least 40% black population and at least 55% expected Democratic vote. (A proper analysis requires a more complex analysis called ecological regression.) The 2018 map contained 21 such districts. The remedial map started off with 20 opportunity districts, and after amendment went up to 22 districts. One would have thought that undoing the partisan gerrymander would have led to more opportunity districts for black voters.

Drawing a map that achieves partisan and racial fairness, and is also compact and meets other criteria, is possible. But it requires considerable skill and thought from those who draw the lines. The House and Senate committees didn’t draw the lines themselves, as instructed. And this House plan is still pretty partisan. So I would not be surprised if the Court stepped in to draw its own map.

On the other hand, this map does not deviate from the middle of the pack of Chen’s simulations, which also show a pro-Republican bias. So in a literal sense, this plan would not set off the alarms that were defined in court. So that map could be accepted – a partial victory for Republicans.

>>>

One puzzle is why legislators didn’t add even more partisanship back into the remedial map. After all, North Carolina politics is famously partisan and bitter. On Wednesday, Republicans staged a budget vote during ceremonies commemorating the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in violation of a promise they made to Democrats. So they do not lack for nerve.

One answer may be that partisan gerrymandering is a team sport, but with the line-drawing process done in the open, legislators couldn’t collude. They couldn’t do as the late redistricting genius Thomas Hofeller did: pack Democrats extra tight in a few districts while spreading Republicans more thinly across a much larger number of districts. By drawing lines in open committee, legislators were reduced to saving their own skins, as evidenced by this video of a legislator attempting to draw himself a safe district:

He was caught – and soon thereafter announced his retirement when his current term ends. Even if he had succeeded, an every-man-for-himself mentality would not increase the number of wins.

Anyway, we will be able to tell what happens by scoring plans as they emerge. That’s because of release of geographic data. Data openness allows citizen groups and us to score plans. That’s why projects like OpenPrecincts.org can play a critical role in the redistricting cycle ahead.

In basketball, a jump ball is the moment when play begins. In this case, the jump ball was spun in the Republicans’ favor. But there’s a lot that can still happen ahead.

The North Carolina legislative committees for redistricting are using expert witness Jowei Chen’s randomly generated maps as a starting point for drawing their remedial maps. Yesterday, the Senate committee drew seven of these to create a single starting point.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has obtained the shapefiles from reporter Melissa Boughton. They can be found here. (D1 and D2, for Bladen-Brunswick-New Hanover-Pender Counties, are the same.)

One set of counties comes from each map. We still have to combine those shapefiles into a single base map. In the meantime, thanks to Michal Migurski at PlanScore, we can tell you how each of these statewide maps performs, using past state Senate results:

On average, these maps are still biased toward Republicans. They have an Efficiency Gap of R+3.9%, a partisan bias of R+2.5%, and a mean-median diference of R+2.9%.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/11/north-carolina-redistricting-senate-starting-map-shapefiles/feed/4“Digital sunshine” for fair districting in North Carolinahttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/06/digital-sunshine-to-help-fair-districting-in-north-carolina/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/06/digital-sunshine-to-help-fair-districting-in-north-carolina/#respondFri, 06 Sep 2019 22:51:24 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22379Today I filed a letter in North Carolina Superior Court regarding the landmark partisan-gerrymandering case that was decided this week. In it, I advocated for “digital sunshine” as a way to make the remedial maps as fair as possible. The letter is here.

The Court held that the General Assembly-drawn House and Senate legislative maps are forbidden partisan gerrymanders under Article I of North Carolina’s state constitution, and can’t be used for the 2020 election. They also ordered that the General Assembly redraw the maps in a public manner, with every change made visible. That’s a great first step toward transparency – but it’s only part of the solution.

I pointed out that to be fully transparent, the work product has to be posted in a digitally-downloadable format. That means shapefiles and/or Census block-equivalency files. These are downloadable formats that allow plans to be evaluated in redistricting software such as Dave’s Redistricting App or PlanScore.org. In conjunction with data that we are gathering at OpenPrecincts.org, such data can empower citizens who want to watch over the process.

If you live in North Carolina, make sure to weigh in with your legislator in favor of Digital Sunshine for redistricting!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/09/06/digital-sunshine-to-help-fair-districting-in-north-carolina/feed/0Discussing Electoral College bugs at APSAhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/08/28/electoral-college-bugs-the-american-political-science-association-meeting-in-washington-dc/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/08/28/electoral-college-bugs-the-american-political-science-association-meeting-in-washington-dc/#commentsWed, 28 Aug 2019 10:31:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22371Tomorrow at the American Political Science Association meeting, I’ll be on a panel organized by Rick Hasen and Bruce Cain on the Electoral College. My topic: A Bug in Democracy: Mythical and True Flaws in the Electoral College. My draft working paper is here, and slides are here. Co-panelists: Amel Ahmed, Michael Morley, and Ed Foley. It should be a good discussion.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/08/28/electoral-college-bugs-the-american-political-science-association-meeting-in-washington-dc/feed/3The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is hiring – National Relationship Manager and Policy Analysthttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/08/07/princeton-gerrymandering-project-job-posting-national-relationship-manager/
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 23:01:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22356Gerrymandering is worse than ever in our lifetimes. We’re working on a strategy to undo this offense (see this recent article of mine and watch this video). And we want you! We have two positions, National Relationship Manager and National Policy Analyst.

The Policy Analyst (job posting here) will expand our law and policy analysis to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. In the last year we’ve worked to apply our data and knowledge to best practices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and other states. The ideal candidate will have a Master’s in Public Policy or a J.D., and be comfortable working at the intersection of data, maps, and law.

The Relationship Manager (job posting here) will disseminate our mathematical, legal, and computational tools nationwide in time for the 2021 redistricting cycle. The ideal candidate should have excellent networking skills and a startup mindset. You’re great at building relationships, extracting people’s motivations, and getting people to take action together. You will build skills and experience that will be transferable to many domains. By the time you’re done, you’ll be ready for leadership in any sector.

Both positions are full-time for a year, renewable for a second year. We prefer candidates to relocate to the Princeton area, a great place to live.

Pass it on!

]]>Miami-Dade County to the rescue on Florida voting rightshttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/24/miami-dade-county-to-the-rescue-on-florida-voting-rights/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/24/miami-dade-county-to-the-rescue-on-florida-voting-rights/#commentsWed, 24 Jul 2019 15:50:13 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22347Thanks to citizen initiatives, 2018 was a surprisingly good year for voting rights. Florida’s Amendment 4, approved by a wide margin in November, would restore voting rights to 1.4 million people who have served their time for felony convictions. (In Florida, an example of a felony conviction is selling beer to a minor.) But a law passed by the legislature would have made rights restoration contingent on first paying fines and court costs. That would have effectively gutted the voter-approved measure.

Now, from Miami-Dade County, comes a deal between the prosecutor and public defender, as well as the state attorney. According to the deal, only fines and costs in the original sentencing document are counted – but not later costs. This will affect tens of thousands – and if it spreads throughout the whole state, hundreds of thousands – of Floridians.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/24/miami-dade-county-to-the-rescue-on-florida-voting-rights/feed/1A Fifty-State Guide To Redistricting Reformhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/13/a-fifty-state-guide-to-redistricting-reform/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/13/a-fifty-state-guide-to-redistricting-reform/#commentsSat, 13 Jul 2019 22:00:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22328As I wrote in today’s New York Times, despite the failure of the Supreme Court to act, there’s a way forward to stop gerrymandering. Here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, we’ve assessed the best route to reform in your state. Check it out!

One route to reform goes through state courts, as Ben Williams reported in March. See our forthcoming article in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law [SSRN link] [PDF].

The fifty-state guide above reflects a team effort by (alphabetical) Hope Johnson, James Turk, me, and Ben Williams. Email us at gerrymander@princeton.edu with your local reports and any corrections!

Now that the Supreme Court has run away from partisan gerrymandering, it’s time to fight on a state-by-state basis.

Here’s a long list of actions for individual states. I’ll add to it as more ideas come up.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/07/13/a-fifty-state-guide-to-redistricting-reform/feed/3Michigan Redistricting Commission: First stepshttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/29/michigan-redistricting-commission-first-steps/
Sat, 29 Jun 2019 18:49:19 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22321Michigan’s new redistricting commission is getting off the ground! Here’s an early step: a request for statistical assistance in selecting commissioners at random from the applicant pool. Statistical consultants, put in a bid – and help move reform forward!

To see the state government’s full RFP, follow this link, click on Guest Access, and do a key word search on “statistical.”

In such a crowded field, it’s inevitable that some candidate will get a boomlet. How long does a boomlet last, and how does it end?

We know what a cycle of boom-and-bust looks like from the contested 2012 and 2016 GOP primaries:

Step 1: Start with obscure candidate X.

Step 2: X says something catchy.

Step 3: The press and pundits go wild! Watch out for meaningless words like “electable.”

Step 4: X inches upward in the polls.

Step 5: The press does more digging, and X gets more attention.

Step 6: Surprise! Something bad happens. A gaffe, a skeleton in the closet emerges, or they just get boring. Bad coverage follows.

Step 7: X drops in the polls.

Time elapsed: 1-2 months.
As an example of this cycle, think of the 2012 GOP primary: Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann. All rose and fell.

We won’t know until some polling data comes in, but changes for Harris and Biden seem likely based on snap audience reactions and web search frequency. Senator Harris has evoked strong positive reactions, and appears to be at Step 2-3. The next question is: does she have the abilities and resources to escape the usual cycle of boom and bust?

Perhaps less appreciated, Vice-President Biden may have just had his Step 6. His bump in the polls started at the end of April, when he announced his candidacy. It’s been two months – is his time up?

And who knows – will we see a Marianne Williamson boomlet? Her web search frequency went through the roof last night. Since she’s polling in the 0-1% range, there’s nowhere to go but up. As a spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey, up seems like a good direction for her.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/28/seven-steps-of-boom-and-bust-harris-at-step-2-biden-at-step-6/feed/0John Roberts’s disproportionate errorhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/27/chief-justice-robertss-proportional-representation-dodge/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/27/chief-justice-robertss-proportional-representation-dodge/#commentsThu, 27 Jun 2019 17:05:51 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22271Today, the Supreme Court ran away from the question of partisan gerrymandering. Chief Justice Roberts’s majority decision cited the problem of “proportional representation” as an impediment to establishing a standard of fairness. His argument has a major logical problem which is easily fixed – though at this point, it will have to be done in state courts. Here’s how.

Roberts asserts that claims of partisan gerrymandering rely on an assumption about what would be appropriate levels of representation. Specifically, he says that the number of seats is not guaranteed for a given number of votes cast statewide – a quota of sorts. (Note that although he says “proportional representation,” he doesn’t mean literal proportionality. He means any diagnostic tool that uses the number of seats won by either party, compared with their vote share.)

To be sure, some tests count wins and losses. The efficiency gap comes to mind, as well as a well-established measure called “partisan bias.” But not all tests do that.

Inequity of opportunity: did both parties have similar opportunity to win seats?

Inequity of outcome: did the parties get a fair share of seats?

Roberts has focused on category (2). But category (1), inequity of opportunity, fits very well with previous doctrine – which has focused on race as a factor. Was a group packed? Then they would have lopsidedly large wins. Was a group cracked between districts? Then their opponents would have carefully arranged, narrow wins.

Here are some tests that probe for inequity of opportunity:

The lopsided-wins test: in a closely-divided state like North Carolina, does one side have more lopsided wins than the other? The t-test does this. As students of science and engineering know, this is literally the oldest test in the book. [Stanford Law Review]

In a party-dominated state like Maryland, were the wins engineered to be very uniform, thus protecting the majority party? Again, it’s a simple test – and again, it doesn’t count the number of wins. [Election Law Journal]

Finally, if the Court didn’t want to get into math, they could have done what they’ve always done in racial gerrymandering cases: inspect individual districts for evidence of packing and cracking.

So basically their reason for not addressing partisan gerrymandering is at best a misunderstanding of the detection methods; at worst, it’s a clever dodge.

Would pointing all this out to the Supreme Court have swayed them? I doubt it. Fundamentally, I suspect Roberts didn’t want to address these cases at all. If in her dissent Justice Kagan had cited the arguments I’ve written about, I am sure Roberts would have found another excuse.

Although federal courts are now closed, state courts are wide open – indeed, Roberts leaned on this point fairly hard. And all the data-based arguments for partisan gerrymandering can still work in state court. We’ve built a legal doctrine that finds relevant principles in all fifty state constitutions. [U. Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, forthcoming] In North Carolina, where plaintiffs lost in today’s Supreme Court decision, the state supreme court is friendly to voting rights. There’s a lot of hope for the Tar Heel State.

The dream of fair districting lives on!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/27/chief-justice-robertss-proportional-representation-dodge/feed/10Coming soon to a powwow near you…http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/10/coming-soon-to-a-powwow-near-you/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/10/coming-soon-to-a-powwow-near-you/#commentsMon, 10 Jun 2019 16:04:19 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22259This summer, I’ll be on a panel at Netroots Nation to talk about state-level strategies to achieve fair districting. It will be in Philadelphia from July 11-13. Our panel’s on the first day.

The other panelists are great. They include a member of the California redistricting commission, widely considered to be a bipartisan success. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is similarly nonpartisan. We are open to a wide variety of audiences and allies, including Netroots Nation, a progressive gathering.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/06/10/coming-soon-to-a-powwow-near-you/feed/1Partisan primaries as gatekeepershttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/05/21/partisan-primaries-as-gatekeepers/
Tue, 21 May 2019 11:06:34 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22249Partisan gerrymandering makes the primary the only election where there is real competition. In the New York Times, a former Senate candidate writes on how even this avenue can be manipulated to reduce competition by the political parties.

The author’s proposed solutions can conceivably help. A top-two primary system, as implemented in California, can increase competition. Elimination of partisan gerrymandering can reduce the number of safe seats somewhat, though his approach, a constitutional amendment, seems doomed to fail. Other approaches, such as state-by-state independent commissions, or H.R. 1, the For The People Act of 2019, have clearer routes to eventual passage.

]]>Mueller Report Book Club: Volume II, Obstruction of Justice, with Quinta Jurecichttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/05/17/mueller-report-book-club-volume-ii-obstruction-of-justice-with-quinta-jurecic/
Sat, 18 May 2019 03:39:39 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22247…and here’s our podcast on Volume II. Our guest is the incomparable Quinta Jurecic, of Lawfareblog.
]]>Your weekend book club: The Mueller Reporthttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/05/10/your-weekend-book-club-the-mueller-report/
Fri, 10 May 2019 13:26:09 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22238Been meaning to pick up that Mueller Report, but gotten a little scare of its heft? Wondering what all the fuss is about? Concerned for your democracy? We have the answer for you!

In the latest episode of Politics And Polls, Julian Zelizer launch our book club on the Mueller Report. This week we do Volume I, Russian Interference. Joining us is Marcy Wheeler, who writes about national security issues at Emptywheel.net. Marcy has an enormous amount of in-depth knowledge. We had a focused discussion, complete with page and section numbers.

]]>Gerrymandering is in the news…in Bustle!http://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/15/gerrymandering-is-in-the-news-in-bustle/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/15/gerrymandering-is-in-the-news-in-bustle/#commentsMon, 15 Apr 2019 17:36:57 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22226Truly it is now cool to care about gerrymandering. Check out this great article in Bustle. It features Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s own Hannah Wheelen and Ben Williams. Also Katie Fahey, Justin Levitt – they went deep and talked to the right people!

To quote Ben: “Gerrymandering isn’t the issue you have to care about most, but it is the issue you have to care about first.”

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/15/gerrymandering-is-in-the-news-in-bustle/feed/7Data Science at Princeton – two jobs available immediatelyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/02/data-science-at-princeton-two-jobs-available-immediately/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/02/data-science-at-princeton-two-jobs-available-immediately/#respondWed, 03 Apr 2019 02:57:04 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22221So, I’ve got two jobs here. Both involve GIS. One’s for redistricting and anti-gerrymandering. The other is for…neuroscience!

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is recruiting a Data Scientist. Analytics to support OpenPrecincts.org, our data hub to help with citizen redistricting in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. You need both data skills and people skills. Both are needed to coordinate the work of volunteers and peer organizations around the country. The preliminary announcement is here.

The Princeton Neuroscience Institute is recruiting a Brain Atlas Software Product Developer. As part of our BRAIN COGS project to understand memory and decision-making, we’re developing a general curation system to map brain circuits to a universal reference frame. The preliminary announcement is here.

Both of these positions are based at Princeton University. Come join us!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/04/02/data-science-at-princeton-two-jobs-available-immediately/feed/0Discover Your Inner Federalist! Using State Constitutions To Stop Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/29/discover-your-inner-federalist/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/29/discover-your-inner-federalist/#commentsSat, 30 Mar 2019 03:56:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22214Update, July 17, 2019: The Supreme Court didn’t act to curb partisan gerrymandering. But there’s a second route to justice: state courts. In Slate, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s Ben Williams reports. To read about this idea, our forthcoming article [SSRN link] in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Lawspells it all out.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/29/discover-your-inner-federalist/feed/1Partisan gerrymandering and the Chiefhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/26/partisan-gerrymandering-and-the-chief/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/26/partisan-gerrymandering-and-the-chief/#respondTue, 26 Mar 2019 12:28:49 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22211Today, the Supreme Court hears two partisan gerrymandering cases, a Republican offense in North Carolina (Rucho v. Common Cause) and a Democratic offense in Maryland (Benisek v. Lamone). The outcome likely hinges on the vote of Chief Justice John Roberts (or Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh…developing…).

In the Atlantic, I review how far the math has gotten in providing objective standards. Researchers have done great work. Even if the Court doesn’t use it, it’s still available for the use of state courts.

Also, we need partners nationwide. To get involved, write to us at redistricting@princeton.edu! – Sam

When it comes to redistricting, the public is on the wrong end of a tilted playing field. I joined PGP to help level that playing field. This requires lots of data, including (i) where voting precinct boundaries are; and (ii) precinct election results and demographic information. You’d think this information would be publicly available – but it’s not.

US elections are administered locally, so the collection process is difficult. We have to inquire around a state for maps by email, phone, or sometimes even in person. Here is a paper map hanging on a wall in a trailer in rural Virginia. My PGP colleague Ben Williams put aside his legal analysis and drove the windy roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains to take its picture. There is only one copy of the map. They don’t even have cellphone service out there!

At PGP, we turn pictures like this into usable data. We convert everything to computerized shapefiles, marry it to election data, and release it freely to to the public. Our portal, OpenPrecincts.org ​(sneak peek below), allows us to coordinate with data teams around the country, boosting their efforts and generating a resource bigger than any one group can do alone.

We have national dreams: we plan to hit all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in time for 2021 redistricting – and earlier in hotspots of legislation and activism. This will be the first integrated national database of its kind. We invite you to pitch in time to collect data, donate to fund your state’s collection efforts, or browse states like Virginia that are already completed.

Wesley Pegden is best known in redistricting circles for a theorem he and co-authors published last year regarding the Monte Carlo Markov chain approach. This approach finds many (typically billions) of maps that are made by making small changes to a candidate map. He showed that if the candidate map is most extreme of N such maps, it must be in the O(1/sqrt(N)) range of maps that can be reached by MCMC. He, Moon Duchin, and Jonathan Mattingly (expert in the N.C. case) have all been applying this approach to redistricting with great effectiveness.

Jonathan Rodden has a long history of drawing ensembles of maps. Using older methods, he and Jowei Chen (now at University of Michigan) have used a random-seeding approach to draw hundreds of maps, not related to one another, to explore a wide range of possibilities.

My own contribution to this brief was to point out that despite the proliferation of map-based and simpler numerical-measurement tests, they fall into two big buckets from a legal standpoint: inequality of opportunity and inequity of outcome. That was the subject of our recent prizewinning entry in the Common Cause contest. Examples include lopsided wins (test of opportunity; applies to N.C.) or uniform wins (again a test opportunity; applies to Maryland). MCMC tests both opportunity and outcome.

We were very ably represented by Tacy Flint. She is a former clerk of Richard Posner and of Stephen Breyer, and she led a legal team at Sidley Austin. All in all, it was a dream team of co-authors and counsel. It was a pleasure to work together!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/03/08/carnegie-mellon-princeton-stanford-brief-in-rucho-v-common-cause/feed/3NJ Redistricting Forum at Princeton University – postponed to Tuesday February 26thhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/20/nj-redistricting-forum-at-princeton-university-snow-postponement/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/20/nj-redistricting-forum-at-princeton-university-snow-postponement/#commentsWed, 20 Feb 2019 17:18:50 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22155The redistricting forum scheduled for tonight at Princeton University is postponed on account of weather. It’s now resecheduled for next Tuesday, February 26th. The location’s the same, Maeder Hall. Here’s the flyer.

This is an event hosted by the League of Women Voters New Jersey and FairDistrictsNJ. It’s part of a series.

See you next week, and stay warm!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/20/nj-redistricting-forum-at-princeton-university-snow-postponement/feed/1Meet the Woo Students!http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/18/meet-the-woo-students/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/18/meet-the-woo-students/#commentsMon, 18 Feb 2019 21:20:44 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22152
In our recent report on Michigan’s new commission, the main movers were M.P.A. students of the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Above, meet Tarrajna, Henri, and the rest and learn how they did it!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/18/meet-the-woo-students/feed/2Laboratories of Democracy Reform: State Constitutions and Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/15/laboratories-of-democracy-reform-state-constitutions-and-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/15/laboratories-of-democracy-reform-state-constitutions-and-partisan-gerrymandering/#respondSat, 16 Feb 2019 03:46:50 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22136Uncertain about whether the Supreme Court will do anything about partisan gerrymandering? We have something for you. Rick Ober, Ben Williams, and I have completed a manuscript, “Laboratories of Democracy Reform: State Constitutions and Partisan Gerrymandering.” It’s available here on SSRN and here as a PDF.

In our article, we argue that partisan gerrymandering can be curtailed on a local basis using state law and constitutions. The intellectual framework was laid out by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan in their decision and concurrence in Gill v. Whitford. And even if they themselves don’t use it, this framework is available for state courts to use under state law.

Their logic is built upon the concepts of equal protection and freedom of association: voters should not be penalized individually (Roberts; equal protection) or in the aggregate (Kagan; freedom of association) for expressing partisan views. As it happens, these provisions are found in state constitutions across the nation.

So long as it doesn’t conflict with federal law, a state court-based ruling is not subject to review in federal court. And generally, it is possible for state courts to provide for more rights than federal courts do. So a new state protection can be reconciled with a wide range of possible actions by the Supreme Court on the North Carolina and Maryland cases currently before it. We give dozens of examples where states used their own law or constitution to overturn a map. Finally, we suggest states where conditions may be right for a local approach, including North Carolina and Wisconsin.

In November, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to their state constitution to remove the power of the state legislature to draw legislative and Congressional district boundaries. The vote was a victory for those seeking to end gerrymandering, but it’s the only the beginning of a process.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has been helping master’s of public policy students at the Woodrow Wilson School to prepare a report highlighting best practices in forming the commission and in executing its constitutional duties. The report is titled A Commissioner’s Guide to Redistricting in Michigan. You can read it here, or download a PDF.

Among our major findings:

By establishing explicit guidelines and hiring bipartisan or nonpartisan staff, the Commission will build trust in a new political institution.

Example maps show that a wide range of partisan outcomes is possible. An evenhanded approach is necessary to ensure partisan fairness.

The criteria enumerated in the new constitutional amendment should ensure representation of communities of interest and avoid bias against political parties.

Data-based tools for visualizing communities of interest will maximize the impact of public input.

The students worked hard to combine law, policy, and quantitative analysis in order to eliminate a bug in democracy. This is a high-quality report, and I’m proud of them – as well as the staff of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

In a few weeks, we’ll travel to Michigan to present our findings to Voters Not Politicians. Nancy Wang, president of Voters Not Politicians, emailed us: “These recommendations will help Michigan’s first Citizen Commission hit the ground running.” We can’t wait to tell her in person!

Incidentally, the students were great. Policy workshops at the Woodrow Wilson School are a chance for second-year students to apply their talents for clients around the world. Students in this class included former NGO workers, U.S. and Australian Treasury officials, and a state government budget official.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/04/princeton-policy-workshop-implementing-michigans-redistricting-commission/feed/0A Redistricting “Reform” Bill in Virginia Would Entrench Politicians Furtherhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/02/03/a-redistricting-bill-in-virginia-would-entrench-legislative-power/
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 07:20:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22083No matter who is governor of Virginia by next week, Republicans have a problem: in 2021, Democrats may control redistricting. In response, Republicans have introduced ostensibly nonpartisan reform. Their “reform” is a hedge – one that weakens the ability of voters to remove legislators from office.

The Virginia redistricting bill HJ615 removes oversight by the governor, removes oversight by one chamber of the General Assembly over the other, and prevents a minority party from speaking for itself.

But why are Virginia legislators proposing any legislation at all? Because of an imminent threat to their power.

In 2011, Virginia was gerrymandered, both racially to hurt black voters, and on a partisan basis to benefit Republicans. We estimate that black voters (and therefore Democrats) lost three seats by being packed into a dozen districts in southeastern Virginia. And in 2017, Democrats just barely failed to take control of the House of Delegates despite winning 54% of the statewide vote. But that artificial dominance is about to fall. In a lawsuit concerning the House of Delegates map, Bethune-Hill v. Va. State Board of Elections, a federal court selected one of several maps offered by a Special Master (which we had analyzed). If the U.S. Supreme Court allows this new map, Democrats would be likely to take the chamber in 2019. If Democrats also take the Senate, they would control the legislative process – and redistricting.

In the face of such a potential flip, Republican leadership in the Virginia House has proposed a new redistricting process, HJ615. It is sold as nonpartisan reform. But Ben Williams and I find that it is more likely to entrench whatever party is already in control.

Here are three major problems.

One party would select the other party’s commissioners. The bill establishes a 12-member commission, 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans. Commissioners would be selected by the Speaker of the House, the Senate Committee on Rules, and the Governor. This means, among other things, that the Speaker, who will be a Democrat or a Republican, would select two Democratic and two Republican commissioners. One party gets to select who will represent the other party.

Each chamber would control its own map. HJ615 says that the requirement to advance a state House or Senate map out of the commission is approval from 3 of the 4 commissioners who represent that chamber. After referral to the chamber, only a simple majority of that chamber – but not the other chamber or the governor – is needed for final passage. The governor’s commissioners only vote on Congressional districts.

Partisan parity is required, but undefined. Districts drawn under the bill would be required to “preserve the political parity” between Democrats and Republicans. But parity is undefined. Does it mean that both sides get an equal share of seats no matter what the vote? That’s the current map, which is a partisan gerrymander.

Fundamentally, this bill undermines checks and balances. A core principle of American government is the ability of one branch to stop the excesses of another branch. This bill removes several checks. It removes the ability of one chamber of the General Assembly to act as a check on the other chamber. It removes the ability of the minority party to speak for itself. Finally and most importantly, it removes the governor from the process of redistricting.

This bill moves in the opposite direction as the reforms that are taking root across the country. It enhances the ability of politicians to entrench themselves in power.

P.S. There’s a competing bill on the Senate side. It establishes a 16-member commission composed of 8 legislators and 8 citizens. It doesn’t have any of the flaws listed above. It takes an optimistic view of the possibility of reaching a bipartisan decision: plans require 6 legislator and 6 citizen votes. It could work!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/27/the-electoral-college-origins-consequences-and-flaws/feed/8Politics & Polls: talk back to Julian and Samhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/22/politics-polls-talk-back-to-julian-and-sam/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/22/politics-polls-talk-back-to-julian-and-sam/#commentsTue, 22 Jan 2019 21:19:09 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22071In our Politics & Polls podcast, Julian Zelizer and I talk to our guests, and sometimes to each other. This week we want to hear from you.

Do you have questions? Ideas that interest you? Email them to politicspolls@princeton.edu. Do it now!

(For regular commenters: you can use the comment thread here too.)

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/22/politics-polls-talk-back-to-julian-and-sam/feed/5Correcting the Economist: Partisan gerrymandering, still going stronghttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/21/correcting-the-economist-partisan-gerrymandering-still-going-strong/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/21/correcting-the-economist-partisan-gerrymandering-still-going-strong/#commentsTue, 22 Jan 2019 02:44:30 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22058The Economist ran a Graphic (January 5th) purporting to show that in the 2018 election, partisan gerrymandering was overcome by a wave of opinion. However, this is simply not true.

In the November Congressional election, Democrats took over the House despite about a dozen seats being safely Republican by nefarious means. I wrote them a letter explaining their error – which they printed in their January 19th issue. Go read it!

For those without access, the full text comes after the jump. Also, a scan is here.

Thanks to The Economist and G. Elliott Morris for giving us a hearing!

Postscript: G. Elliott Morris points out that their headline gave a wrong impression. Headline writers have the power to simplify – and to oversimplify.

>>>

To the editor:

Your Graphic (“The failure of gerrymandering,” January 5, 2019, page 65) gives a false impression about fairness in American elections. In fact, the bias in the U.S. House of Representatives is still strong.

In five states where gerrymandered lines were still in use (North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maryland), incumbent political parties only lost control of 2 out of 58 seats, or 3%. In contrast, in Pennsylvania, whose gerrymander was overturned in state court, 4 out of 18 seats flipped partisan control, or 22%. So where gerrymandering was still in effect, it nearly froze representation in place – even in the face of the biggest wave of voter sentiment in decades.

In a fair system of single-member districts, a majority party almost always wins a greater share of seats than it does votes. This is an old law of political science. For example, In 2014, Republicans won 53% of the two-party national vote and won 57% of seats. Yet in 2018, Democrats won over 54% of the two-party vote but only won 54% of seats. In short, Democrats underperformed fair expectations, thanks in large part to distorted district boundaries. This asymmetric performance by the two parties is clear evidence of a persistent tilt in the political playing field.

To achieve fair elections, it is important to understand the flaws in the American electoral system. Under current rules, Democrats in 2020 could all too easily repeat what happened in 2012: win the Presidency and popular vote, but fail to control the House. Mitigating this unfairness will require legal reforms to deny politicians a free hand in drawing their own district lines.

Sam Wang
Professor and Director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey USA

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/21/correcting-the-economist-partisan-gerrymandering-still-going-strong/feed/1Fault Lines: an interview with Julian Zelizer and Kevin Kruse on their new bookhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/10/fault-lines-an-interview-with-julian-zelizer-and-kevin-kruse-on-their-new-book/
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 00:44:54 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22051I got to discuss America’s political divide with my colleague Kevin Kruse, as well as his co-author – and my co-host Julian Zelizer. Julian and Kevin are co-authors of a new book on contemporary American history released this week, “Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974.”

]]>Say “hasta la vista, baby” to gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/10/say-hasta-la-vista-to-gerrymandering/
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:45:14 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22046In Los Angeles, the Schwarzenegger Institute for Public Policy is hosting the Terminate Gerrymandering Summit. This is its actual name! A launch for their new project, the Fair Maps Incubator. It’s focused on redistricting commissions. and it will be livestreamed!

]]>Coalition for smarter redistricting in New Jerseyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/07/coalition-for-smarter-redistricting-in-new-jersey/
http://election.princeton.edu/2019/01/07/coalition-for-smarter-redistricting-in-new-jersey/#commentsTue, 08 Jan 2019 02:47:07 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=22037I’m pleased to announce that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project is joining a working group to evaluate and make recommendations for New Jersey’s legislative redistricting process. Our press release is here.

Our working group follows on an unpopular proposal that would have changed the composition of the reapportionment commission and inserted a formula for compliance. PGP found that this formula would not stop partisan offenses – and even left a fairly prominent loophole.

The new working group, coordinated by Patrick Murray at Monmouth University, will write a report that will provide guiding principles for the next redistricting round in 2021. We’ll also host a series of public forums in collaboration with the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. One forum will take place here at Princeton!

Ronald Chen, Rutgers University law professor and the former New Jersey Public Advocate.

Brigid Callahan Harrison, professor of political science and law, Montclair State University.

Patrick Murray, director, Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Yurij Rudensky, redistricting counsel, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Leadership took a beating. Some of this beating was unfair, administered by reporters who see everything in terms of national partisan warfare. The true battle was between the Legislature and Governor Murphy. But the legislation also had defects. Now there’s breathing room to fix it.

To fix the amendment, we have a few ideas. Some were described in our December 5th analysis. Here’s an updated list:

1) Keep the partisan balance test. In A.C.R. 205/S.C.R. 43, having half the districts be above-average and half below-average provides protection against partisanship in a 50-50 “purple” state. New Jersey isn’t purple now, but it could be someday. This rule is fine, and not nearly as bad as news reports have made it out to be. But it doesn’t cover the situation in 2021, when New Jersey will still be Democratic-leaning.

2) Drop all of the “competitiveness” language. Competitiveness tends to arise naturally when other criteria are dealt with honestly. So it’s better to give up mandating it in a law. The formula in the amendment is a mess anyway. The easiest move is to drop it entirely.

3) Add a provision prohibiting the drawing of a statewide plan that favors one party over the other. This could be a generally-worded provision. Perhaps better would be to specifically name known ways for detecting partisan advantage in a partisan-leaning state. In such a state, a dominant party entrenches its own advantage by engineering unusually uniform wins.

Possible text: modify the proposed text of A.C.R. 205 Article IV, Section III, paragraph 2(e) by adding a new sentence: “Notwithstanding any provision of this Article, no plan to establish legislative districts shall have the intent or effect of unduly favoring or disfavoring any political party on a statewide basis as measured using accepted measures of partisan fairness and excessively uniform wins.”

4) Make the Voting Rights Act’s section 2 a state-level right. At the federal level, this provision could be struck down by the Supreme Court in the near future. To protect voting rights in New Jersey, it would be great to add language to protect minority groups.

5) More public hearings and transparency. If deliberations have to be public, it’s much harder to commit an offense against a party or community. So mandating public hearings and making commissioners document their reasons for their choices would be very helpful.

If all of the above were done, the legislation would be pretty good. The two parties would have to propose plans that were somewhat closer to one another, which might encourage compromise. And minority rights would be protected.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/16/fixes-to-the-n-j-redistricting-amendment/feed/4How a lazy media narrative has missed the boat on the NJ redistricting storyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/15/nj-redistricting-amendment-mistakes-in-news-coverage/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/15/nj-redistricting-amendment-mistakes-in-news-coverage/#commentsSat, 15 Dec 2018 14:37:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21969Much news coverage of the New Jersey redistricting amendment has characterized it as a Democratic power grab. But this is a lazy dependence on the national narrative of partisan warfare. Here in the Garden State, this is an intra-party squabble. Republicans are bystanders – and minorities are missing a chance at getting much-needed protection from the Supreme Court.

As fun as it is for the press to claim “both sides do it,” that’s actually not true in this case. In fact, there is so much confusion that proponents and opponents of the legislation are both citing Princeton Gerrymandering Project analysis – though in some cases, somewhat selectively.

There’s a wrong idea going around. The legislation *doesn’t* cement a Democratic advantage. Both parties can still gain an advantage, by persuading the independent commissioner to accept their plan.

This legislation is mostly not about partisanship. Instead, it is a power grab by the Democratic General Assembly – to take power away from Governor Murphy, who is also a Democrat. The grab consists of changing the commission away from being appointed by the state parties and governor. Instead, commissioners will be appointed by legislative leaders.

The commission is currently half Democrats, half Republicans, plus an added independent tiebreaker appointed by the state Supreme Court. That’s the good part! The amendment doesn’t change that fact. But it also doesn’t do anything to mandate that competing plans from the two parties be closer together. It’s a lost opportunity.

Much of what has appeared in the news media about the mathematical formulas is wrong. Here’s a recent example by Mark Joseph Stern of Slate. As much as I generally like Stern’s work, there are some factual issues with this particular piece. He’s not alone.

Here is a quick FAQ on what the legislation does and doesn’t do.

Does this legislation lock in a Democratic majority? No, not at all. Under the formula that half of districts be more Democratic than average, and half more Republican than average, a guaranteed majority for Democrats is only true if their local candidates match their statewide candidates, and get more than 50% of the statewide vote. Which, um, is a popular majority. This is not exactly a problem. It’s a good thing!

Under this plan, can Democrats really create a plan that wins 70% of seats with 57% of the vote? Sort of. Mr. Stern and others have quoted the Princeton Gerrymandering Project as saying this. That’s true – but we also find that Republicans can do something quite similar. Amusingly, this latter fact was mentioned (unattributed to us) in a Thursday hearing in Trenton by New Jersey Democrats, who argued this was a good point about the bill. In other words, the bill doesn’t hand Democrats an advantage. It just doesn’t restrain bad acts at all by either side. That fact that we are giving ammunition to both sides illustrates the confusion surrounding the legislation.

The law can bite Democrats back, hard. Under the same rules, Republicans can craft a plan that gives them the legislature with a popular minority. We think this can happen with as little as a five-point swing against Democrats, which could easily happen in 2021 if Democrats win the presidency in 2020 (incumbents generally suffer losses the next year). That’s a loophole that Team Blue probably didn’t intend to leave.

Does the law suppress competition? No, this is totally wrong, on two counts. The wrong criticism is that the legislation “only” mandates that one-fourth of districts be near the average, which is how the legislation defines competitiveness. It lets the rest be more Democratic or Republican-leaning. But in a natural distribution of districts, that’s about what one would expect (nerdy footnote 2). So in a sense, the legislation is par for the course.

But there’s something sillier. Because the state average tilts Democratic, these pseudo-competitive districts are safe-ish for Democrats. Making more districts like that is exactly how Democrats would draw a gerrymander!

Is the bill better than no bill at all? No. Aside from the black eye that New Jersey Democrats are currently getting, it misses an opportunity to fix real problems. Remaining protections for minorities under the Voting Rights Act are one Supreme Court ruling away from disappearing. NJ legislators could write those protections into the state constitution…but they didn’t.

Another fix to the legislation would be to add language requiring that a statewide plan not favor either party unduly. That would be a bit vague, but at least it would give the tiebreaking commissioner an anchoring point.

But to tell the truth, New Jersey’s existing mechanism for drawing the lines is imperfect…but it’s not the worst out there, not by a long shot. So a relatively good solution is to simply leave the law alone!

Whatever one thinks of the press coverage, it is undeniably true that Senator Sweeney is in a bad political situation. We had a previous suggestion on how to repair the legislation, but at this point fiddling with the math might be politically untenable.

However, he can salvage it pretty easily, and still get what he wants. He could strip out the math and replace it with a guarantee of voting rights for minorities, echoing the Voting Rights Act. That still allows him to stick it to Murphy, and silence many critics.

Nerdy footnote 1: It is commonplace to complain that percentage X of the vote leads to much more than percentage X of seats. This complaint is mostly lame. Winner-take-all elections lead to that naturally. For example, in 2012 Barack Obama won 52% of the two-party vote – and 62% of the electoral votes. It’s a nonlinear relationship.

In the example cited by the media, 70% of New Jersey legislative seats is more than they would “deserve.” But under neutral principles, 57% of the vote might typically get them only about 60-65% of seats. 70% is too many, but it is not exactly a runaway gerrymander, like one sees in North Carolina.

Nerdy footnote 2: The legislation calls for at least one-quarter of districts to be within five points of the state average. But in most states, the standard deviation on partisanship is about 15 points. So the legislation mandates how many districts should fall within one-third of a standard deviation. The answer is 26%, almost exactly one-quarter. In other words, the legislation mandates typical behavior of a normal process. By itself, this is not a partisan move!

However, having lots more such districts might be a problem, as we have documented before.

Unusually, he has given the court a variety of choices. In these choices, the affected area, in southeast Virginia, is divided into four regions. In each region, Professor Grofman has given the court several options. We give you a visualization of several of the plans here.

Today the Princeton Gerrymandering Project submitted an amicus brief evaluating the various plans. We find that the combination which does the most effective job of remediating the racial bias is also the plan that makes the most changes. We say as much in our amicus brief (see PDF).

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has compared New Jersey’s redistricting legislation, S.C.R. 43/A.C.R. 205, to the current system that is already in place. We find that the proposed legislation would not improve quantitative measures of fairness. Furthermore, it opens the door to several forms of partisan and racial gerrymandering.

Here are the major points:

The formula (pseudo-“competitiveness” and partisan symmetry) still allows gerrymandering.

It gives partisans a way to fool the independent commissioner, and does not bring the parties closer together.

It does not guard against the single biggest threat to the Voting Rights Act.

A do-nothing bad bill forecloses the possibility of a better bill.

Details:

The symmetry criterion still allows a partisan gerrymander. The legislation says that 20 districts shall be more Democratic than average, and 20 districts shall be more Republican than average. However, in a partisan-leaning state like New Jersey, this pattern can still allow a partisan gerrymander by Democrats if most districts are placed very close to the average.

The competitiveness formula has little effect. The formula for so-called “competitiveness” does not impose any meaningful constraints on partisan gerrymandering, relative to the current process. Instead, it still allows either party to commit a partisan gerrymander by creating many pseudo-”competitive” districts. In most cases, these are still safe districts for Democrats. This has been noticed by the press and good-government groups.

These rules still allow gerrymandering. Maryland Democrats committed a Congressional gerrymander that would have passed both the symmetry and so-called “competitiveness” criteria. (For a demonstration of how a partisan gerrymander in a partisan-leaning state like Maryland or New Jersey can meet these criteria, see Wang 2016, 15 Election Law Journal 367.) The Maryland map is now being litigated in Benisek v. Lamone, one of the highest-profile redistricting cases of the last year. And by artful application of the rules, Republicans can also still commit a gerrymander (see our analysis of December 5th).

A.C.R. 205 gives partisans a way to fool the independent commissioner. Because the legislation rewards so-called “competitiveness” by telling the tiebreaking commissioner they were maximizing this feature, partisans can persuade the independent to sign off on a partisan gerrymander, favoring either Republicans or Democrats.

A.C.R. 205 does not guard against the single biggest threat to the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court has already invalidated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (protecting voting rights) via the Shelby County v. Holder decision. Section 2 (restraining racially discriminatory redistricting) is currently still in effect, but this could change in the near future with a hostile Supreme Court. A.C.R. 205 does nothing to protect those rights in New Jersey.

A.C.R. 205 does not bring the parties closer together. A.C.R. 205 allows the creation of plans that are nearly as far apart as what the law currently allows. The commission deadlocked in 2001 and 2011, and this bill is unlikely to produce a different result. Because it does not bring the two parties’ positions closer together, it does nothing to broker a compromise plan.

A do-nothing bad bill forecloses the possibility of a better bill. This bill takes up space that could be used for real reforms.

]]>New Jersey redistricting legislation still allows Democratic and Republican gerrymandershttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/05/new-jersey-redistricting-legislation-still-allows-democratic-and-republican-gerrymanders/
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 20:10:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21909
As I wrote earlier this week, there’s been a lot of fuss – and some misinformation – concerning a proposed redistricting reform here in New Jersey. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has now analyzed the legislation, constitutional amendment S.C.R. 43/A.C.R. 205.

Will Adler, Ben Williams, and I find that the legislation still allows either party, Republican or Democrat, to commit a gerrymander. We show exactly how that would be done, and we list districts that would be affected by a partisan redrawing of the state legislative map.

We also describe amendments that would close these loopholes and create genuine reform. This morning, we sent our findings to two local legislators, Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker (D) and State Senator Kip Bateman (R). Our analysis and recommendations are here as a PDF.

At the top of this post is a Republican gerrymander that is allowed under the legislation. Here is a Democratic gerrymander, also in compliance:

In these charts, each dot is one Senate district, color-coded by party (black indicates open seats freed up by throwing pairs of Democrats into the same district). The location of the dot is the natural partisan tendency of the district, as defined by statewide elections. The arrows include the advantage that individual incumbents bring to the table on top of that natural partisanship.

How can this be? It has to do with a weird definition of competitiveness, and limits on partisanship that don’t entirely make sense given New Jersey’s demographics. For details, see our memo.

]]>What New Jersey’s Redistricting Amendment Does – And Doesn’t – Dohttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/02/what-new-jerseys-redistricting-amendment-does-and-doesnt-do/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/12/02/what-new-jerseys-redistricting-amendment-does-and-doesnt-do/#commentsMon, 03 Dec 2018 02:42:10 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21894New Jersey has gotten into the mix with redistricting reform. A constitutional amendment has been introduced to change the rules for how districts will be drawn. Far from being a good-government bill, the proposed legislation is a recipe for volatility – and contains a loophole that would allow either party to commit an extreme gerrymander.

Last week, Senator Tom Kean Jr. (R) wrote an opinion piece decrying the legislation. He got some points right. For example, he’s correct that good-government groups, social justice groups and academics all have concerns about the bill. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s Ben Williams and Will Adler testified in Trenton at a hearing last week. Their entire statement is here.

However, Senator Kean is not quite right that it’s an effective power grab by Democrats. For that purpose, it’s poorly designed. Indeed, it has a loophole that could allow Republicans to commit a gerrymander against Democrats as early as 2021.

The legislation doesn’t guarantee a Democratic advantage. But it does give cover to anyone who wants to commit a gerrymander, by providing standards that give the appearance of fairness.

Under this legislation, Democrats or Republicans could still draw lines to their advantage. We have examples that prove this. Either side would even have an argument to the independent tiebreaking commissioner that they were simply following the law to a maximum extent.

Gerrymanders can be camouflaged by calling close but reliable wins “competitive” – which is misleading. And close, reliable wins across the board are how a party cements an advantage for itself. Because the independent commissioner can pick either side’s map, it turns redistricting into a giant coin toss.

It creates incentives for either party to weaken all incumbents, including its own incumbents. They would be rewarded for taking risks in search of a big win. Some competition is good, but this legislation would reward volatility. For example, we have identified a list of districts whose Democratic incumbents would become pawns for their own party to push around, in search of a partisan advantage.

More than anything, this legislation is a missed opportunity. If it passes, it takes the place of genuinely good reform. And that’s a loss for all New Jerseyans.

Watch this space – and gerrymander.princeton.edu – for our later postings on this bill.

Yesterday, FairDistrictsPA had a town hall on redistricting in Harrisburg. Lots of great people, with a focus on Pennsylvania. It was livestreamed – the whole event is available here, and my session will be here and is embedded above (I start at 36:09).

My panel featured FairDistrictsPA legislative director Pat Beaty, the Brennan Center for Justice’s Yurij Rudensky, and me. We talked about prospects for state-level action in Pennsylvania.

I talked about the Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s mission: to use math, law, and data to help with fair districting. Fundamentally, we are translators and toolmakers. We work at the level of rules (lawmaking and courts) and transparency (open data and citizen redistricting).

I was especially pleased and excited to talk about OpenPrecincts, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project‘s approach to providing tools for all citizens to do high-quality, open-access redistricting. It’s not unlike what the good people at DrawTheLinesPA are doing, though our goal is to draw legal-quality maps and hit all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. We aim to get this done in time for 2021 redistricting cycle – and in certain key states, even sooner.

]]>Optimal Donations, 2018 (Runoff Edition)http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/24/optimal-donations-2018-runoff-edition/
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 13:42:22 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21858Election season’s not quite over. We have two high-profile runoffs, one for Georgia Secretary of State and one for Mississippi U.S. Senate. In both cases, no candidate reached 50%, as required by state law there. Both races are highly consequential. Therefore the thermometer at left has been updated.

The Georgia Secretary of State race goes to a runoff on December 4th. This year’s general election in Georgia was filled with controversy, consequent to Secretary of State (and now Governor-elect) Brian Kemp’s aggressive voter-purge tactics. If even a small fraction of the 400,000 challenged and postcard-purged registrations were legitimate, that might have been enough to affect the gubernatorial election. The candidates are John Barrow (D) and Brad Raffensperger (R). The general election was Raffensperger 49.1%, Barrow 48.6%, Duval (L) 2.2%. 1.0%=39,000 votes.

This election is highly consequential for 2020 and 2022. The winner will administer elections – and voting rights – for 2020 and 2022. Georgia is a partisan trifecta – the governor’s mansion and legislature are under single-party control, in time for redistricting (sound familiar?). If the Republican, Raffensperger, wins as Secretary of State, that makes it a…quadrifecta, I guess…for individual and aggregate voting rights.

The Mississippi Senate race is very much in the news, with the election coming up this Tuesday, November 27. Like the Alabama special election in 2017 between Roy Moore (R) and Doug Jones (D), this race is a battle between the old South and the new South. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) said she’d “attend a public hanging” if a friend invited her; this is a phrase that was last used in the age of lynchings. Today it emerges that Hyde-Smith attended a “segregation academy,” one of many that were set up to help whites evade school desegregation. The Mississippi Legislature even handed out vouchers to whites to attend them. More recently, Hyde-Smith sent her daughter to attend one of these academies. The November election was Hyde-Smith 41.5%, Espy 40.6%, with most remaining votes going to another Republican. Turnout may matter on Tuesday.

Traffic was substantially down this year compared with 2016 – by more than a factor of 10. That’s understandable for a variety of reasons, including our lighter posting regimen and the consequences of PEC’s general election calculations. But I will note that the most committed PEC readers stuck around. One measure is the comments, still solid. Another is the donation sites at left for ActBlue (D) and NRSC (R). The amount in the ActBlue is almost exactly equal* to the total in 2016, which was itself a record $362,590. In an off-year, that’s really incredible. The NRSC doesn’t have tracking – that would be interesting to see. I am thankful for your continued readership!

I am also thankful for the expanded interest in state-level action. State elections and ballot initiatives are a major part of U.S. democracy going forward. Witness the fact that we just saw redistricting reform pass in all four states where it was on the ballot (Utah just passed a few days ago), increases in the minimum wage in Missouri and Arkansas, and Medicaid expansion in half a dozen states around the country. It’s a remarkable flowering of the New Federalism.

All of this shows that we’re at some kind of pivot point in U.S. history. The current era started in the mid-1990s with Gingrich, and reached an extreme with the election of Trump. And now, the 2018 election gave a preview of what might happen next. Are we reliving the 1974 Watergate election? Are we reliving the end of the Gilded Age? The United States is going someplace new. I wonder where that is.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

*As of November 24, the 2018 total has now exceeded the 2016 total. One important note: in 2016 there were 1,600 donors. This year’s total has come from 1,137 donors so far.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/22/happy-thanksgiving-2/feed/9Just Lines – a podcast about redistricting!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/10/just-lines-a-podcast-entirely-about-redistricting/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/10/just-lines-a-podcast-entirely-about-redistricting/#commentsSat, 10 Nov 2018 06:32:17 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21834Nancy Palus, a freelance journalist with an impressive record covering democracy in developing countries, has decided to focus on elections in the United States. The result is Just Lines, a podcast with some pretty good guests so far – Katie Fahey of Voters Not Politicians, and redistricting guru Justin Levitt.

I joined her before Proposal 2 passed in her home state, Michigan. We got into many topics, including my thoughts about our second Gilded Age. It was a good episode – take a listen.

Nancy Palus: Before we wrap up here I’d like to hear your thoughts on this question—what do you hope future generations will read about what happened with partisan gerrymandering during this era, and what do you think they’ll read?

Sam Wang: What I hope they’re going to read is that the long arc of voting rights in America was one that started with one person, one vote, then led to minorities getting representation, and then eventually led to making sure that the parties were treated equally in this great time of polarization. And that it was done by a combination of federal and state action where individual states took advantage of the populist reformist impulses that arose out of our time and built reforms that basically rescued democracy from what I would characterize as a pretty dark time from the 1990s to now. So the idea would be that just like in the Gilded Age there was a time of corruption and bitter partisanship, it eventually led to the Progressive Era beginning around about 1900.

So what I hope is going to be in the history books is that just like the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, we emerged from this time stronger and with a new type of democracy that built on the strengths of what we had before the 1990s. So that’s what I would love for the history books to say.

What are the history books really going to say? Well, I’m an optimist so I think they’re actually going to say that. But I suppose an alternative future would be, the United States had its flirtation with greater egalitarianism, one person, one vote, but as corporations became stronger and as polarization in America became stronger, then America began a slide into partisanship and separation into two Americas and thereby became less of a great country.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/10/just-lines-a-podcast-entirely-about-redistricting/feed/2Politics & Polls #114 – Valerie Jarretthttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/08/politics-polls-114-valerie-jarrett/
Fri, 09 Nov 2018 04:42:48 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21817Julian Zelizer and I talked with Valerie Jarrett the day after the election. Jarrett was President Barack Obama’s longest-serving policy adviser. She gave her take on political races in Texas, Georgia, and Florida. She also talked about what it was like to do a cameo on The Good Wife, and what it takes to succeed as a woman in a male-dominated office environment. It was a good interview! Listen to the new Politics & Polls.
]]>Electoral maps based on 2018 resultshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/07/electoral-maps-based-on-2018-results/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/07/electoral-maps-based-on-2018-results/#commentsWed, 07 Nov 2018 17:28:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21805(revised Friday November 9th to correct an error in Maine Senate)

The election turned out approximately as expected from advance information, a narrowly-Democratic House and a Republican Senate. I thought it might be good to look at the results from the perspective of 2020.

Above is what an electoral map based on the state-by-state House results would look like. It was calculated by averaging the district vote share percentage for each state and seeing which side gets over 50%. Uncontested races were treated as 75%-25% for the winner. (See the comment thread for further discussion.)

However, the House election is measured not by people but districts. In terms of districts, the outcome is quite close. This arises from a combination of population clustering and gerrymandering. Without gerrymandering, Democrats would have had about ten more seats, both before and after the elec

Here is what a Senate results-based map would look like:

In this case the outcome is 269 D, 93 R, 29 unresolved (Florida), 147 with no Senate race in 2018.

This may look a bit different from the media narrative that it was a victory for Republicans – which it was, certainly in terms of retaining control. But large voter populations in safe states – California, Pennsylvania, ad so on – contribute to this larger picture.

This idea was sparked by an exchange with E.J. Chichilnisky.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/07/electoral-maps-based-on-2018-results/feed/13The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is hiring!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/07/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-is-hiring/
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 13:25:46 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21729I think there are lots of data/politics people who might have a little more free time as of today. So…

Do you love democracy? Are you a data person? Hate gerrymandering? Want to help level the playing field for all citizens? The Princeton Gerrymandering Project needs you!

We are planning OpenPrecincts, a project to provide open precinct geography, voting data, and redistricting software to all citizens. We aim to provide the first-ever free, comprehensive resource for state and local redistricting. Our project, in conjunction with quantitative efforts by several groups around the country, will level the playing field for the post-2020 redistricting cycle.

We’re looking for two people: a Product Developer for OpenPrecincts, and a National Coordinator to take the effort to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

In the coming weeks, watch this space for a full job announcement. For now, we’re looking for two people:

Product Manager and Developer. This person will oversee the development of Open Precincts. The job requires a combination of database architecture, software product assembly, and user-interface skills. Commitment to democratic institutions and open software are a must. A draft description is here. This position is for a minimum of six months, and could be contract work or a full-time position. This is our top recruiting priority.

National Coordinator. This person will be a data-savvy, community-minded organizer. She/he will perform outreach in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. She/he will recruit teams to help us gather data. This person will also lead efforts to make our capabilities available to end-users around the country. This is a full-time position at Princeton University.

Watch this space for updates – and pass the word on to suitable people. You can contact us by writing me and by sending a resume to gerrymander@princeton.edu!

1:52am: The gubernatorial races in Wisconsin and Georgia are unresolved. However, I am done for the evening. Good night, all!

1:51am: The margin between Kemp and Abrams is currently about 110,000 votes. Brian Kemp, who is Secretary of State, has tried to suppress turnout by challenging new registrations and purging the rolls of “inactive” voters. The total number affected, currently estimated at nearly 400,000 voters, comprises about 5 percent of Georgia’s voting-eligible population. And there are Election Day voting irregularities as well. It’s not a great situation, voting rights-wise.

1:15am: Elections and ballot measures tonight make it harder to continue the gerrymanders in Michigan and North Carolina. If Tony Evers (D) defeats Gov. Scott Walker (R) in Wisconsin, that will lead to divided government, ending another gerrymander.

One state may gain single-party control: Georgia. Considering the habits of Brian Kemp (R) in voter suppression, if he becomes governor a partisan gerrymander cannot be far off. Georgia has a Republican-dominated state Assembly and Supreme Court. And Georgia has no initiative process.

There is also Florida, which remains under the control of a single party with the election of Governor DeSantis (R). It had the Fair Districts constitutional amendments to limit gerrymandering, but the state Supreme Court has shifted to the same party as the governor and legislature. There is one more House/Senate election in Florida before post-2020 redistricting.

12:22am: I’m winding down here – just a few more posts.

Supermajorities in at least one chamber of the North Carolina legislature will be broken. House: 64 R, 53 D, 3 still close. Senate: 29 R, 18 D, 3 still close. Republicans will still control both chambers thanks to their gerrymandering skills. But they can’t override the governor’s vetoes now.

11:34pm: Big news from North Carolina. Anita Earls has won her race for the North Carolina Supreme Court. That brings the court to 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans. Earls is a major voting rights advocate. This strengthens the one remaining check on the state legislature, which is increasingly seen by leaders of both parties as out of control. See my analysis of North Carolina.

Several anti-voting-rights measures have failed in North Carolina, one to pack the state Supreme Court and one to make election boards partisan. However, a voter-ID measure has passed.

11:28pm: Same-day voter registration passing in Maryland, 67% to 33%. This could bring 7% of the voting-age population in Maryland onto the rolls.

If automatic or same-day registration were passed nationwide, it would mean close to 40 million new registered voters.

Registration made automatic: Michigan again. Waiting on Nevada and Maryland.

Each of these has a huge effect, equivalent to 8-10% of voting-age population.

10:43pm: In Missouri, Amendment 1, which mandates the drawing of competitive districts, is running 19 points ahead of Claire McCaskill.

Back to Michigan – automatic voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting are also passing.

Redistricting reform, re-enfranchisement in Florida, and automatic voter registration – this is a great night for voting rights expansion.

10:31pm: Michigan’s Proposal 2, an independent redistricting commission, is passing by a 61-39 margin. Eight points ahead of Governor-elect Gretchen Whittmer, a race that’s been called. Independent redistricting and divided government as a backup – Michigan won’t be gerrymandering any more!

10:24pm: This is very reminiscent of 2016. Purple districts coming in approximately on-target with polls, Republicans doing notably better than expected in red states (IN, ND, TN). Just now, a flip of gerrymandered House District 11 (was polling D+1%, at D+9% so far) is one example. It’s part of the Republican levee against tonight’s wave.

10:08pm:

The NYT currently projects a national popular-vote margin of D+9.2%. The largest popular margin since 2008, larger than waves of 1994, 2006, 2010, 2014.

9:39pm: In Pennsylvania, Democrats currently lead in 9 out of 18 districts. That’s a big change from the 5 districts they carried in 2016. If this holds up, the four-seat gain is entirely due to the undoing of a partisan gerrymander, mandated by the state Supreme Court.

9:31pm: In Colorado, non-partisan redistricting (Amendments Y and Z) are currently passing by a 72-28 margin! With 43% reporting. One of four redistricting-reform initiatives. The others are Michigan, Utah, and Missouri.

8:59pm: In Florida, Amendment 4, re-enfranchising ex-felons who have served their time, has passed. That will return the right to vote to about 1.5 million Floridians, including 1 out of 5 African-Americans of voting age. This was the single largest voting-rights issue on the ballot this year. See my article on voting rights expansion on the 2018 ballot.

8:48pm: In Indiana, Donnelly (D-inc.) down by 14 points, with 47% of precincts reporting. That’s extremely different from the Donnelly +3% margin in surveys.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/06/live-blog-2018/feed/12What you’re voting for todayhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/06/what-youre-voting-for-today/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/06/what-youre-voting-for-today/#commentsTue, 06 Nov 2018 13:22:28 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21702
You’re voting, right? Check your poll location and closing time. And you donated [PEC’s high-leverage picks] [NRSC]. And now, on Election Day, three cheers to those of you who are getting out the vote. Good luck – your country needs you!

In addition to the House (final snapshot here) and Senate (final snapshot here, post-Kavanaugh bounce), you’re voting for a ton of other races and questions, including:

What sets democracy apart from every other form of government is the input of ordinary citizens into their country’s future. While the period in between elections remains owned, perhaps, by the rich or otherwise powerful, it is on Election Day that the largely powerless have their say.

Now go say something!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/06/what-youre-voting-for-today/feed/1In late Senate polls, a small signal – or noise?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/can-democrats-get-to-50-seats-plus-the-beto-factor/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/can-democrats-get-to-50-seats-plus-the-beto-factor/#commentsTue, 06 Nov 2018 01:56:42 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21658I assume you’ve all been getting out the vote. And donating to one of the organizations in the left sidebar. Maybe you’ve even voted already! OK, now let us take stock of late-breaking developments, which are a little unexpected.

All season I’ve thought that Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) wouldn’t come close to unseating Senator Ted Cruz (R). But the last week of surveys (end dates 10/29 or later, median of n=4 pollsters) show Cruz ahead by only 3.5 +/- 3.1%. That gives me pause.

The 3.1% uncertainty includes 3 points of systematic error by pollsters, based on past midterm elections. That’s a 3.5/3.1 = 1.1 sigma lead, which converts to odds of about 4-1 for Cruz. This is not a slam dunk. I think reports of Beto’s electoral demise are premature. I don’t know who will win, but it could be close.

And the other races? Here’s the last week of surveys (end dates 10/29 or later). Except for Tester, there’s a small but noticeable movement toward Team Blue. It looks like the Kavanaugh bounce has mostly ended.

There are five races within 1 sigma: Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and Missouri. All except for Missouri show a slight lead for the Democratic candidate…but with individual win probabilities in the 0.2-0.8 range for either party.

The Meta-Margin is R+4.2%, i.e. overperformance by that much make control a perfect toss-up. Lucas Manning (PEC webmaster) and I will use this data to make a final update to the history tracker.

The systematic (i.e. correlated) error will be known after the election. In the Senate, it usually falls in the direction of Presidential (un)popularity. Democrats could well win all five races, including Missouri (or they could lose all five). If the former happens, that gets Democrats+Independents to 50 seats. In the other direction, an error favoring the President’s party is less likely but would lead to 45 D+I seats.

Of course, Democrats could also fall short. Easy to see that happening, especially in Montana, Missouri, and maybe Indiana. Now we know what Senate races to watch most closely!

And, to state the obvious: if all the close races were to fall the Democrats’ way, the Texas race would become very important indeed.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/can-democrats-get-to-50-seats-plus-the-beto-factor/feed/6House Outlook: Streams Convergehttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/house-outlook-three-streams-converge/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/house-outlook-three-streams-converge/#commentsMon, 05 Nov 2018 19:00:10 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21566As has been the case for months, Democrats are still favored to win the House. But measured in terms of national popular vote, they are only 2 or 3 percentage points above threshold to do so. That’s pretty close…and all of them touch the threshold for control by either side.

What makes everyone think the House will go Democratic? Let me list three streams of evidence. They all point the same way, but none are definitive. The streams are based on (1) polls, (2) real results from special elections, and (3) district-by-district analysis.

The generic Congressional ballot. PEC’s Meta-Margin is defined purely in terms of generic Congressional ballot polls. By this measure, the House has been between 1.5 and 3 percentage points above threshold for Democratic control (I estimate threshold = a 6% margin in the national popular vote, i.e. polls suggest a popular-vote win of 7.5-9.0%). The blue band on the beta site displays the 90% confidence band on this measure. That band shows a popular-vote range of Democrats by 5-12%. The bottom of that range indicates Republican retention.

Special elections (real elections, no polls). These have predictive value, and suggest that Democrats are 3 percentage points above threshold for a takeover. The pink band displays the 90% uncertainty band, a range of a popular-vote win of 6-12% for Democrats.

Note that this stream of information is based on real elections, not polls. This is a huge advantage. It has the disadvantage that when there’s one special election at a time, national energy can be brought to bear on a single district. Did the outpouring of get-out-the-vote activity these last few weeks match that intensity? We don’t know yet.

Expert evaluations. Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik have their final picks. They apply their expert judgment, which includes district-level polls, funding, and candidate quality. They end up with 229 Democratic seats – a handful over the 218 needed for a majority. That corresponds to a national popular-vote win of about 9-10% for Democrats. However, note that about 30 were listed until recently as toss-ups, which would suggest an 90%-confidence-band of plus or minus 9 seats.

Despite the near-certainty of a convincing popular-vote win, the question of control is still a little up in the air. The basic reason is gerrymandering, which I estimate gives Republicans about a 3-point bonus.

Voters can address the offense of gerrymandering tomorrow with ballot initiatives in Michigan, Utah, Missouri, and Colorado to establish balanced redistricting processes. Only one, Michigan, currently has a partisan gerrymander. In the others, the initiatives are just good government.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/05/house-outlook-three-streams-converge/feed/6Final fundraisinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/04/final-fundraising/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/04/final-fundraising/#commentsSun, 04 Nov 2018 23:28:07 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21614A few key races are now outside the critical knife-edge range: Wisconsin governor and a Florida House race. For Democrats, those have been dropped from the ActBlue at left. That list focuses on close Senate and House races where the impact of donations is largest. For Republicans, the NRSC will have a clear idea of where resources ought to go – probably many of the same Senate races.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/04/final-fundraising/feed/2Two Futures: 45 or 50 Democratic Senate seats…but not in between?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/04/senate-2018-home-stretch-two-futures/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/04/senate-2018-home-stretch-two-futures/#commentsSun, 04 Nov 2018 21:00:10 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21586Four years ago, I pointed out that close Senate races all tend to fall in the direction of one party or the other. Since then, the idea has stood up pretty well. It implies two very different possible futures. There are a few races I will be watching on Tuesday to figure out which is ours.
The overall pattern above is consistent with two ideas: (1) Polling misses a bit of enthusiasm for the winning side in Presidential election years. (2) Polls also don’t catch energy that goes against the President’s party in midterm years.

The chart shows the range of possibilities in races where the polls showed the race within 3 percentage points. 2014 fits the pattern, 2016 less so.

In 2014, the President’s party (Democrats) had a midterm election go hard against them beyond what polls indicated. That was the lowest-turnout election since 1942. This could help account for the systematic polling error, which I estimated as being more than five points.

In 2016, the outcome favored Republicans, but less so. Compared with final polls, the unexpected winners were Republicans in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Democrats still won in Nevada and New Hampshire.

An overall error as small as two percentage points would lead to fairly different outcomes, at either end of the range:

Future #1: Democrats get to 50 seats. This future corresponds to the idea that there is hidden support for the out-party, i.e. the Democrats. That would lead to 50 Democratic/Independent seats.

Arguing in favor of this idea is Trump’s high unpopularity. Arguing against this idea are the reports of high turnout, which is a situation that pollsters ought to be able to deal with. If there is a polling error, I would guess it will not be nearly as large as 2014. But a two-point error is well within the range of possibilities. Which gets Democrats to 50 seats. This possibility is more likely than people realize, I think.

What happens in a 50-50 divided Senate? Last time this happened, in 2001, there was power sharing. But those were very different times, and the Senate is far more polarized now. Think of the possibilities: Pence stuck in the Senate all the time to break ties, or Democrats attempt to recruit Murkowski to their side. That would be quite a show.

In addition to this 50-seat scenario, as an outside possibility I will be watching the Tennessee race between Phil Bredesen (D) and Marsha Blackburn (R). Tennessee is a low-turnout state even in Presidential years. This year, early voting shows increased turnout among Tennessee voters under the age of 50. So there’s some chance of a hidden bonus there. Nonetheless, Blackburn leads in polls by a median of 5 points, which is a fair amount. If Bredesen pulls off a win, it would boost the odds substantially that Democrats can get as high as 51 seats. It’s a long shot.

That’s a contrast to Texas, where early voting has passed the 2012 Presidential numbers and might get to 2016 levels. Does this mean there’s a hidden bonus for one side or the other, or does it mean polling will be more accurate? I think polls are accurate and Cruz will win, but we will find out.

Future #2: Democrats end up with 45-46 seats. Conversely, the Arizona Senate race has shown a slim lead of about 3 points for Kyrsten Sinema (D) over Martha McSally (R). If McSally pulls out a win, that would suggest the polling error favors Republicans, and a bad overall outcome for Democrats in the Senate.

I guess there is also Future #1.5, a median-ish outcome of 47-49 D’s. That’s not nearly as good as Republicans had hoped for a few years ago. But it’s also not a dream outcome for Democrats.

Progressive policies are more popular than progressive candidates. Red-state candidates who advocate for increases in the minimum wage and Medicaid expansion lose to opponents, who tar them as liberals. Yet surveys show large bipartisan majorities in favor of these same policies. This is a testament to how well it works for Republicans to make politics about candidates rather than issues.

In six states across the country, voters get to focus just on the policies. This is part of the federalist playbook that progressives and moderates are now using to move their issues forward.

Medicaid. Citizens of Utah, Nebraska, Montana and Idaho will vote on the expansion of Medicaid, which provides healthcare benefits to lower-income citizens. These states voted for Trump by margins of 18 to 25 percentage points. Yet where polls are available, Utah and Idaho the initiatives seem likely to pass. In Idaho, outgoing Republican Governor Butch Otter has backed the expansion. The Nebraska initiative has the support of serious money.

These initiatives could boost Democrats’ chances in the few vulnerable districts in these states. October polls in Utah’s 4th Districtshow McAdams (D) with a median 0.5-point lead (n=4 polls) over Mia Love (R-inc), and Montana’s at-large district currently shows a tie (n=3) between Kathleen Williams (D) and reporter-assaulting incumbent Greg Gianforte (R). In these districts, progressives have a way to focus voters on healthcare in a very direct way. There’s no telling whether voters will vote for the progressive candidate – but if they turn out, at least they might get the policy they want.

Minimum wage increases. Polls show broad bipartisan support for increasing the minimum wage. Missouri and Arkansas voters have a chance to vote to do so. Polls also show enthusiasm for indexing the minimum wage to inflation – the Missouri initiative does that.

In the hotly contested Missouri Senate race, Claire McCaskill (D-inc.) and Josh Hawley (R) are currently tied. And Missouri’s 2nd District shows a an unclear race (D+2% and R+11% in the two polls).

It’s not too late to vote absentee! Stop by your local clerk’s office ASAP to request or drop off an absentee ballot. All ballots MUST be in your clerk’s hands by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. https://t.co/IzmzTNvILn

Whether you are progressive, conservative, or independent, there are many reasons to vote in the Wolverine State. I’ve written about the redistricting reform there, Proposal 2, which may level the playing field there for citizens and both parties permanently.

But wait, there are many more reasons! The net effect will alter the face of democracy in Michigan in a far deeper way than most people appreciate.

In addition to redistricting reform, there is also Proposal 3, automatic voter registration, which expands the voter pool hugely – much larger than the effect of voter suppression in other states. Together with redistricting reform, something big is going to hit Michigan in the next few years. And of course, all this will be overseen by whomever is elected Secretary of State next week.

As if there weren’t enough, there are four Congressional districts that are gerrymandered…but the swing in national opinion is magnified in these districts: Districts 3, 6, 7, and 11. Get-out-the-vote activites are especially powerful in these places.

In the state Supreme Court, two seats are up for election. The Democratic candidates are legal scholar Sam Bagenstos and attorney Megan Cavanagh. If these candidates win, that would make the court 4 Democrats, 3 Republicans (it’s now 5 Republicans, 2 Democrats). The Republican candidates are incumbents Kurtis Wilder and Elizabeth Clement, appointed to the court by departing governor Rick Snyder. Democrats may have an advantage, since their candidate for governor Gretchen Whitmer has a large lead in her race. However, note that party affiliation for state Supreme Court does not appear on the ballot.

Not sold yet? There is also Proposal 1, a recreational marijuana legalization initiative.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/why-your-vote-matters-massive-changes-in-michigan/feed/0Making the last push in 2018http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/making-the-last-push-in-2018/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/making-the-last-push-in-2018/#respondSat, 03 Nov 2018 17:09:16 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21544For neuroscientists, Election Day is a middling priority when planning conferences. Today starts the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego. It’s an incredible outpouring of science and creative effort from close to 30,000 people – most of whom will be far from home. I hope at least they voted! That is the minimal duty of a citizen in an election, especially one that is so pivotal for the health of our democracy.

If you’re helping with the final push for your preferred side, you can find places to help with our competitive district finder. And wondering what state candidates and ballot questions deserve your attention? Here’s the PEC Guide To Key Elections.

If by chance you are in far southern California and not a neuroscientist, there are some closely contested districts:

the 45th district (Walters-R over Porter-D by 4 +/- 5%; median+/-SD, n=3 polls) and the 48th district (Rohrabacher-R over Rouda-D by 2 +/- 6%, n=3). These are districts where getting out the vote will make a difference.

If you are a neuroscientist, come to the conference and check out some great work we’re doing at Princeton – neural network-based joint classification in flies and mice. High time resolution and easy training – about a hundred examples are enough to train the method, which we call LEAP. Come see what Talmo and Lindsay have to say!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/making-the-last-push-in-2018/feed/0When The (Gerrymandered) Levee Breaks: North Carolina and Michiganhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/when-the-levee-breaks/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/when-the-levee-breaks/#commentsSat, 03 Nov 2018 05:01:00 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21518Back in 2013, I wrote about the hidden vulnerability when a party engineers winning districts for itself. This idea is in full force for 2018.

Gerrymandered wins may swing back hard, because they often have a mix of Democratic, Republican, and most important, independent (and maybe swingable) voters. This would explain some surprisingly close races in North Carolina and Michigan.

To quantify this, let’s look at GOP-held districts in 3 gerrymandered states: N.C. (CD 2/7/9/13), Michigan (2/6/7/8/11), & Ohio (1/12/16) in which polls are available. In every one of these 12 districts, Trump received more votes than Clinton by an average margin of 11.6%.

The incumbents ran well ahead of Trump, winning their last election in 2016 by an average of +20.7%. But now, those same districts show an average Republican lead of only 2.8% – an 18-point swing toward Democrats. That is twice as large as the swing in national polls, which has gone about 9 points toward Democrats.

Here’s a comparison for all districts, with the swing calculated between the 2016 House margin and current 2018 polls:

2016 margin

Trump-Clinton

Oct. 2018 polls

Swing toward D’s

NC-07

R+22.0%

R+17.7%

D+4%

26 points

MI-11

R+12.7%

R+4.4%

D+1%

14 points

NC-02

R+13.4%

R+9.6%

D+1%

14 points

NC-09

R+16.6%

R+11.6%

Tie

17 points

OH-12

R+36.7%

R+11.3%

R+1%

36 points

MI-08

R+16.8%

R+6.7%

R+3%

14 points

NC-13

R+12.2%

R+9.4%

R+3%

9 points

MI-06

R+22.2%

R+8.4%

R+4%

18 points

MI-07

R+14.9%

R+19.0%

R+4%

11 points

MI-02

R+30.3%

R+17.6%

R+6%

23 points

OH-01

R+19.2%

R+6.6%

R+9%

10 points

OH-16

R+30.8%

R+16.7%

R+9%

22 points

Democrats lead in three of these districts – NC-02, NC-07, and MI-11 – and are tied in NC-09.

So the levee is at risk of overtopping slightly in North Carolina. This is a state where a racial gerrymander was struck down and replaced with a map that was still partisan – but did not use race in the same way. The resulting gerrymander gave Republicans a slightly narrower margin of safety. Think of it as removing the top layer of sandbags from the levee.

In Ohio and Michigan, the partisan maps seem to be holding up better. Still, in 9 out of 12 districts in these three states, the polling margin is within 5 points in either direction. That’s cutting it pretty close.

Does this mean that gerrymandering doesn’t matter? Not at all. These districts were safe for their incumbents in 2012, 2014, and 2016. 2018 is quite a large swing by historical standards – larger than the swing from George W. Bush’s popular margin in 2004 to Barack Obama’s in 2008. Of course there’s some point at which a gerrymander fails. There always is. That doesn’t change the fact that these districts were engineered to be uncompetitive under a wide range of normal political conditions.

Postscript: Also note that legal actions have been chipping away at gerrymanders for several years now. Dave Daley documents the slow, steady progress.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/03/when-the-levee-breaks/feed/1Senate outlook: 45-50 Democratic/Independent seats (median=47)http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/02/senate-outlook-45-50-democratic-independent-seats-median47/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/02/senate-outlook-45-50-democratic-independent-seats-median47/#commentsFri, 02 Nov 2018 14:47:08 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21495If systematic polling error is no larger than past midterm elections (median of 3 percentage points, as high as 5 points), control of the Senate appears to be a difficult lift for the Democrats. The polling error would have to be at least 5.0 points (that’s how the Meta-Margin is defined).

They have a much better shot at achieving a 50-50 tie: in that case, the error only has to be 2 percentage points. More on that below – but first, the aggregated data in all its glory.

Because the Meta-Margin has been stable for about two weeks, I created a table showing polls with an end date of October 19 or later. Poll medians are given with standard error of the mean (SEM).

Then the lead is converted to units of sigma by combining the SEM and median historic error (3 points) into a single quantity, sigma. Sigma therefore includes not just sampling error but also systematic error, i.e. how far off pollsters are about who ends up voting. Conceptually, a lead of 2.0 sigma approximately corresponds to the margin of error in a single poll.

State

Leader

Median +/- SEM (n)

# sigma lead

MT

Tester

D+8.0 ± 2.1% (3)

2.2 sigma

NJ

Menendez

D+5.0 ± 1.0% (3)

1.6 sigma

FL

Nelson

D+2.0 ± 0.7% (17)

0.6 sigma

NV

Rosen

D+2.0 ± 3.1% (8)

0.5 sigma

AZ

McSally

R+1.0 ± 1.3 (9)

0.3 sigma

MO

Hawley

R+1.5 ± 1.2 (4)

0.5 sigma

IN

Braun

R+2.0 ± 1.7 (6)

0.6 sigma

TX

Cruz

R+4.5 ± 1.0 (6)

1.4 sigma

TN

Blackburn

R+6.0 ± 0.9 (6)

1.9 sigma

ND

Cramer

R+9.0 ± 2.3 (3)

2.4 sigma

Within the 2-sigma margin of error are a whopping eight races. This range includes everything from a Menendez loss in New Jersey to wins in Texas and Tennessee for O’Rourke and Bredesen. However, these extreme possibilities don’t seem realistic. Voter turnout should be high, making it a little easier for pollsters to gauge likely voters.

Seems to me that a more realistic range of uncertain races is plus or minus 3 percentage points: Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, and Indiana. In that case the range of outcomes is 45 to 50 Democratic/Independent seats. The median outcome is 47 D/I seats, a net change of two seats. Good thing for the Republicans they are running in such red states this year.

A 50-50 tie for control of the Senate is possible if Democrats win all of these close races. That’s not crazy at all because close races tend to break the same way – usually in the direction of the winning party. If that outside possibility came to pass, I wonder whether there would be power-sharing in the Senate, as there was in 2001, or whether the Republican caucus would use Vice-President Pence as the tiebreaker to maintain control.

For Democrats, the ActBlue link at left has been updated to reflect these close races. For Republicans, the NRSC page is still a good place to give.

Six of the most important gubernatorial elections next week take place in the Midwest: Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. In October polling, Democrats lead in all six races. In four states (Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio), Republicans are at risk of losing sole legislative+gubernatorial control of state government, and in three cases they used their power to draw extreme partisan gerrymanders. Conversely, if Republicans in Minnesota win the governorship and a key state Senate race, they will gain total control. A lot is at stake!

A Republican trifecta opens the door for policy that might not be otherwise achievable, such as abortion restrictions, repeal of gun-control regulations, and anti-LGBT legislation. Conversely, a Democratic governor can veto such legislation.

In all states but Iowa and Ohio, the governor has to sign off on the redrawing of district lines after the 2020 Census. In 2010, trifectas led to extreme partisan gerrymanders in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan – three out of eight nationally. Lawsuits can partially address gerrymandering, but are lengthy, uncertain, and leave the offense in place for one or more elections. A faster and more effective way is to district fairly in the first place.

Democrats’ leads are narrow enough that on average a Republican may win one of them. Here are the October polls:

Wisconsin. Challenger Tony Evers (D) may unseat once-rising-star and incumbent Scott Walker (R). Walker has been a polarizing figure, especially in labor relations. Wisconsin Assembly is among the most gerrymandered in the nation, and is the subject of the high-profile case of Gill v. Whitford. An Evers win will prevent that gerrymander from recurring. October polls (n=3) show Evers up by 3.0 +/- 2.0 %.

Iowa. Challenger Fred Hubbell (D) leads incumbent Kim Reynolds (R) by 3.5% in just two polls. Reynolds was appointed in May 2016 after former Governor Terry Branstad (R) resigned to become the ambassador to China.

Michigan. Former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D) leads state Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) by 8.0 +/- 2.0% (n=5 polls). This one’s potentially important for multiple reasons: the extreme gerrymander, the Flint water crisis, and Michigan’s crumbling infrastructure, just to name a few issues.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/11/01/why-your-vote-matters-in-the-midwest-will-republicans-lose-their-grip-on-power/feed/9Voter rights expansion is on the ballot next week!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/31/voter-rights-expansion-is-on-the-ballot-next-week/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/31/voter-rights-expansion-is-on-the-ballot-next-week/#respondWed, 31 Oct 2018 15:50:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21467Voter-ID and voter-suppression efforts are in the news. But there is also big positive news under the radar.

Ballot initiatives across the nation would register, re-enfranchise, and re-empower millions of voters. Numerically, these effects are 8-10% of voting-age adults – they are far larger than the effects of voter-ID laws. (Unfortunately, they’re in different states.) In Nevada, Florida, and Michigan, the implications are substantial.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/31/voter-rights-expansion-is-on-the-ballot-next-week/feed/0Early voting datahttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/early-voting-data/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/early-voting-data/#commentsWed, 31 Oct 2018 02:54:44 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21463TargetSmart is tabulating early voting on a state-by-state basis. Move your mouse over the little bar graphs to see 2018 vs. 2014 early-voting-to-date. Basically every key state has fairly large surges in early voting. Maybe not surprising since they were usually not key states four years ago.

Postscript: commenter ArcticStones reminds me of the thorough tabulation done by Michael McDonald of the University of Florida. It is here!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/early-voting-data/feed/2Redistricting Reform Initiatives For 2018http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/redistricting-reform-initiatives-for-2018/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/redistricting-reform-initiatives-for-2018/#commentsTue, 30 Oct 2018 04:52:30 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21434Redistricting reform is on the ballot next week! Citizens of Utah, Colorado, Michigan, and Missouri will vote on initiatives that will reform redistricting in their states.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has analyzed all four initiatives. All have a high potential to succeed at making redistricting fairer, and not targeting political parties or minority groups to take away representation.

Unlike a court case, this approach can put specific limits on what maps are permissible. It also does so in advance, so that biased maps are never drawn in the first place. Finally, all the measures mandate a certain amount of transparency to the process.

For detailed commentary, click on the links to get a fully marked-up Google document PDF of the legislation. These represent our current thoughts – please give us your own comments in reply to this blog post.

Utah. Utah is heavily Republican – and also has a tradition of clean and open government. The Better Boundaries Initiative establishes a commission of 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and 2 independents (one appointed by each party) to draw Congressional, state legislative, and other district lines. Maps must not show partisan bias. In order to pass a map, the commission has to get at least one vote from the minority party or the independent appointed by the minority party.

The measure gives a list of ranked priorities that the commission must follow on top of federal requirements, starting with keeping cities/counties together. In a separate section of the text, the measure also calls for partisan fairness, which should guard against overpacking of cities into a few districts.

Colorado. Colorado didn’t seem to have a gerrymandering problem. But on a bipartisan basis, the legislature acted in advance of future troubles by putting two referenda on the ballot. Amendments Y and Z would create a citizen commission to take over redistricting. This referendum was passed unanimously out of the legislature. There seem to be no barriers to passage.

Like the Utah measure, Amendments Y and Z emphasize keeping cities/counties together, but also forbid giving advantage to a political party.

Michigan. Michigan is home to one of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the nation. This would change if Proposal 2 passes next week. Proposal 2 sets up a commission modeled after California’s redistricting commission. Commissioners are selected by a statewide application process. They are given the task of drawing both legislative and Congressional boundaries. Maps must protect “communities of interest” and must not show partisan bias.

To pass, any plan must receive support from Democratic, Republican, and independent commissioners. It does not impose strong conditions on identifying partisan affiliation or independence, instead relying on random selection from a sufficiently large applicant pool. A recent survey by Epic/MRA shows Proposal 2 with 59% support, 29% opposed.

Missouri. The Clean Missouri Initiative is the most unusual initiative of the four. It covers redistricting, campaign finance, and government transparency. The redistricting component puts the first step of drafting new state legislative maps into the hands of a new position, a nonpartisan state demographer. That person would be constrained by exact rules on partisan fairness.

The Clean Missouri initiative has the unique distinction of basically enforcing the use of the efficiency gap to measure the fairness of a map. A maximally compliant plan would have a certain fraction of seats that were highly competitive – one-fifth, if my calculations are correct (33 out of 163 seats). Maximum compliance would also require that other seats be drawn so that a certain number was likely to be won by each major party, with more seats going to the majority party.

Bottom line: All four initiatives would achieve reform in different ways. If passed, they would take a substantial step forward in state-by-state redistricting reform, which we described in the American Prospect.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/30/redistricting-reform-initiatives-for-2018/feed/4Politics & Polls: Year Of The Woman, 2018 – and North Carolinahttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/28/politics-polls-year-of-the-woman-2018-and-north-carolina/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/28/politics-polls-year-of-the-woman-2018-and-north-carolina/#commentsSun, 28 Oct 2018 23:30:17 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21420This Politics & Polls is a pre-midterms double-header, on women and on North Carolina.

This year, a record number of women candidates are running for federal office. Where did this come from, and how many of them will win? Julian Zelizer and I drill in with Prof. Danielle Thomsen of U.C. Irvine, who’s visiting Princeton for the year. And here’s a look at what this year’s new wave of women activists looks like in a formerly solid Republican bastion, California’s Orange County.

We also spoke with Barry Yeoman, who recently wrote a deeply-reported piece on the craziness of North Carolina politics. Our focus was Anita Earls, a woman who is favored to win a state Supreme Court seat. She would strengthen that court as a check on what members of both major parties are starting to see as a runaway legislature.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/28/politics-polls-year-of-the-woman-2018-and-north-carolina/feed/3Friday Night viewing: Fixing Bugs in Democracyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/friday-night-viewing-fixing-bugs-in-democracy/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/friday-night-viewing-fixing-bugs-in-democracy/#commentsSat, 27 Oct 2018 00:00:17 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21413A few weeks ago, I gave a public lecture at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Great audience, great discussion. Learn about partisan gerrymandering and how Open Data can help level the playing field for all citizens!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/friday-night-viewing-fixing-bugs-in-democracy/feed/2Optimal 2018 donations in the home stretch: Senate, House, Governorhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/optimal-donations-in-the-home-stretch-2018/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/optimal-donations-in-the-home-stretch-2018/#respondFri, 26 Oct 2018 15:00:46 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21356Judging from my mail, I think some of you think I am back online making predictions. This is not true!

PEC provides aggregation and information to reveal where you can make the most impact. Since almost the start, my reason for operating PEC was to show how such efforts might be optimized. And as I wrote in 2016, I’m not estimating any probabilities this year – that’s why there are only Meta-Margins above. If you want probabilities, I think FiveThirtyEight does a bang-up job. There, now you know I’m serious!

Now…where to give – House, Senate, or governor? Let’s look at current conditions.

Senate. Democratic control of the Senate is somewhat unfavored, but there’s still uncertainty. This is not for want of polls. There are lots. Six races are currently showing poll medians within 3 points in either direction. Since election results can systematically deviate from opinion polls by up to four points (i.e. the polls can all be wrong in the same direction), either Democrats or Republicans could conceivably sweep all of these races. That still leaves a range of 45 to 51 Democratic/Independent seats!

Based on past elections, it’s not a bell-shaped curve; the ends of the range are quite likely. So Republican retention is not certain. Add in the possibility of a 50-50 split (power-sharing) and the fact that this year’s election sets the stage for 2020, and there are many reasons to care about this year’s Senate races.

Therefore the six close races are all worth supporting: AZ, FL, IN, MO, NV, and TN.

House. Here I list three streams of evidence. FiveThirtyEight puts them together, but I think there’s value in inspecting them separately. They all point toward a Democratic takeover, but none are definitive.

The generic Congressional ballot. PEC’s Meta-Margin is defined purely in terms of generic Congressional ballot polls. By this measure, the House has been between 0 and 4 percentage points above threshold for Democratic control (threshold = a 6% margin in the national popular vote, i.e. polls suggest a popular-vote win of 6-10%). The blue band on the beta site displays the 90% confidence band on this measure.

Special elections. These have predictive value, and suggest that Democrats are 3 percentage points above threshold for a takeover. The pink band displays the 90% uncertainty band.

Expert evaluations. Evaluations like the Cook Political Report seem to use district-level polls, funding, and candidate quality. If one takes the Solid/Likely/Lean Democratic seats and adds half the toss-ups, one gets an average of 224 Democratic seats – a handful over the 218 needed for a majority. If one treats the tossups as coin flips, the 90% confidence interval is 215-233 Democratic seats. That is not shown on the graph.

In summary, despite the near-certainty of a convincing popular-vote win, the question of control is still up in the air. The basic reason is gerrymandering, which I estimate gives Republicans about a 3-point bonus.

Based on all of this, one could certainly support close House races. But which ones? There are dozens of them all over the country.

One effective move would be to volunteer in a district near you (with the help of our Competitive District Finder), and donate in selected races. For example, one could give to close House races that are also in a state with a close Senate race. That means Nevada District 3, Arizona District 1, or Florida Districts 15, 26, and 27. All are listed in the ActBlue at left (along with most of the Senate races). On the Republican side, one could give to the National Republican Campaign Committee.

Governor. In some states, a change in the governorship will lead to divided-party control of government. This is important; Democrats are notoriously bad at focusing on state and local races. The closest key race is in Wisconsin, where Tony Evers (D) may unseat Scott Walker (R). The Supreme Court didn’t end Wisconsin’s famous gerrymander earlier this year. A future Governor Evers would be in office in 2021 for redistricting, and would make sure the offense wasn’t repeated.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/optimal-donations-in-the-home-stretch-2018/feed/0Why Your Vote Matters: New Jersey, Ground Zero for swing districtshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/why-your-vote-matters-new-jersey-ground-zero-for-swing-districts/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/why-your-vote-matters-new-jersey-ground-zero-for-swing-districts/#commentsFri, 26 Oct 2018 11:00:21 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21391There are swing Congressional districts all over the nation. And right here in Princeton, we have an exceptional density of close races.

Within 25 miles of Princeton are three Congressional districts in which October poll medians [NJ] [PA] show the two candidates within 1 or 2 percentage points of each other:

NJ 7th (Malinowski-D vs. Lance-R-inc), NJ 3rd (Kim-D vs. MacArthur-R-inc), and PA 1st (Wallace-D vs. Fitzpatrick-R-inc). And there are several more races that are rated almost as competitive.

In these districts, getting out the vote for your preferred candidate is exceptionally powerful. In terms of influencing the probability of who controls the House in 2019, turning out one vote in these districts is ~100 times more powerful than casting your own vote in a less-competitive district.

It’s going to rain this weekend, but that’s an even better time to canvass – everyone will be at home!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/26/why-your-vote-matters-new-jersey-ground-zero-for-swing-districts/feed/2Can Michigan terminate gerrymandering? Analysis of Proposal 2http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/25/analysis-of-michigans-proposal-2-can-the-wolverine-state-terminate-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/25/analysis-of-michigans-proposal-2-can-the-wolverine-state-terminate-gerrymandering/#commentsThu, 25 Oct 2018 13:43:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21378The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is hitting the road! This week, members of my team are going to Michigan and California to investigate redistricting reform on the ground. We’re helping students of the Woodrow Wilson School as they evaluate best practices for how to implement an independent commission, which is on the ballot in Michigan.

Overall, it’s a great step forward for the Wolverine State. Here’s a our analysis of the proposal’s merits – and one area to keep an eye on. (Here are our detailed comments on the initiative as PDF and Word documents. Also see our analysis of Colorado Amendments Y and Z.)

Michigan is a diverse state, with unique population patterns. It’s also home to one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in the nation, thanks to single-party control of the redistricting process. A grassroots organization, Voters Not Politicians, aims to change that. They gathered signatures to qualify Proposal 2 for the ballot, a measure that will establish an independent redistricting commission. Voters get to decide, as well as choose a new governor, in less than two weeks.

We have evaluated the proposal in detail. It’s based on the California commission, a model redistricting effort. There’s a lot to like about the Michigan measure. The basics of the commission are similar to California’s: a three-part commission of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and all three groups are needed to approve a legislative or Congressional plan. The commission must take into account a variety of factors, emphasizing fair representation for communities of interest and lack of partisan bias. Compactness is important too, but to a lesser extent, which places an emphasis on communities and people over how they are arranged. Michigan has tremendous variations in population density, making it hard to join communities in some cases.

One area of future concern is the affiliation of commissioners. Michigan does not require citizens to give a partisan affiliation when they register to vote. It may be hard to identify Democrats and Republicans. More important, it will be a challenge to identify good commissioners for the independent group. Most independent voters have some partisan leaning, and some bias may be unavoidable. However, the secretary of state (who selects a pool of commissioner candidates from which commissioners will be drawn at random) may want to take care to cull out “independents” with a history of strong partisanship.

Overall, Proposal 2 is a strong effort. It could help usher in fair representation and terminate gerrymandering in Michigan!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/25/analysis-of-michigans-proposal-2-can-the-wolverine-state-terminate-gerrymandering/feed/3Is the Senate Kavanaugh bounce partially ending?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/24/the-senate-kavanaugh-bounce-is-partially-wearing-off/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/24/the-senate-kavanaugh-bounce-is-partially-wearing-off/#commentsWed, 24 Oct 2018 19:29:57 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21339People often ask if polls move opinion. Not that many people pay direct attention to the numbers. However, polls do set the tone for what journalists and pundits write…with some delay. Combined with the time it takes to conduct and release a poll, this means that news articles can be a lagging indicator of the state of play.

Currently, political writers have noted the turn of Senate races against Democrats. This comes from several key races in Republican states – Tennessee, Texas, and North Dakota – moving toward Republicans at the same time that the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing came to a crescendo. Few of them have noticed that opinion seems to be swinging back:

Recent poll medians currently show the leaders in those states as Blackburn (R-TN) by 3%, Cruz (R-TX) by 8%, and Cramer (R-ND) by 12%. So in red states, post-Kavanaugh sentiment is partially holding. It’s unlikely that Democrats will win any of them, though I am keeping an eye on Tennessee.

Leaving those three races aside, Democrats have a narrow path to 50 seats – and split control. This would involve winning Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Nevada, all of which are within two percentage points. Home-stretch polling error in midterm elections has been as high as 4 percentage points, so it’s possible. However, if the error goes in the other direction, Democrats could go as low as 45 seats. The median result is currently 47-48 Democratic seats and 52-53 Republican seats.

Why, in the face of high disapproval for Trump and pro-Democratic national sentiment (see House data), do Democrats still face an uphill battle in the Senate? Most of you already know the reason: lots of pro-Trump states have Senate races this year. But this year’s outcome also sets the stage for 2020, when Democrats have a far more favorable playing field. Even if the Senate does not flip for 2019, control in 2021 will be highly consequential for whoever is president – and for all of us.

In less than two weeks, Florida voters have a chance to restore the right to vote to over 1.5 million Floridians – more than 1 in 10 of the adult voting population. This is by far the largest voting-rights question in any election in the nation. Amazingly, this is thanks to a ballot initiative that is backed by both the Koch brothers and the ACLU.

In addition, the two-decade hold by Republicans on Florida state politics could finally break if rising star Andrew Gillum wins the governor’s race. Finally, Florida has a whopping seven close Congressional races, a close Senate race, and a key Attorney General race.

Read on.

Under current law in Florida, people with prior felonies never regain the right to vote unless they are individually re-enfranchised by a state board. Governor Rick Scott (now a Senate candidate; more on that later) was key in the continued exclusion of felons after reversing a precedent set by his predecessor. After his election in 2010, Governor Scott and the legislature created a state board which only rarely approves voting rights applications from ex-felons. By national standards, this is not normal policy. Over 1.5 million Floridians – over 10% of the adult population – is disenfranchised, accounting for nearly half of the national total of people who have served their sentence, yet cannot vote.

This can be reversed by Amendment 4. Amendment 4 is buried in the twelve different amendments on the Florida ballot, and is one of two citizen-initiated amendments not placed there by the State Legislature or the Constitution Revision Commission. Amendment 4 would restore voting rights to former felons (excluding those convicted for sexual offenses or murder) who have completed their sentences, including parole and probation.

Amendment 4 is a civil rights issue: 21% of African-Americans in Florida are disenfranchised by the current policy. In addition, passage of Amendment 4 could make a big difference to Florida politics. Florida is the land of close elections: the margin of victory in the past two gubernatorial races, in 2010 and 2014, were 1.2% and 1.0% respectively. In 2016, Trump won Florida by 1.2%, and in 2012, Barack Obama won by only 0.9% – a little over 100,000 votes. And if Amendment 4 passes, hundreds of thousands of new voters would join or re-join the Florida electorate.

Amendment 4 is an amendment to the state constitution and needs 60% to pass; polls indicate that it may clear 70%, though some of that support appears soft. Both the conservative Koch-funded Freedom Partners, and two left-leaning groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and Floridians for a Fair Democracy, have endorsed Amendment 4. However, Amendment 4 is opposed by three Republican candidates for statewide office: Attorney General candidate Ashley Moody, gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, Senate hopeful (and current governor) Rick Scott.

>>>

After all that, we finally come to the candidate races: governor, Senate, attorney general, and Congressional races. It’s a remarkable confluence.

Governor. Andrew Gillum (D) faces Ron DeSantis (R) to replace the departing Rick Scott. Gillum would become only the third African-American governor in U.S. history (tied with Stacey Abrams in Georgia if she wins). Gillum currently leads by a median of 6 percentage points (n=9 October polls).

House. OK, here’s the big show. There are no fewer than seven key House races: Congressional districts 7, 15, 16, 18, 25, 26, and 27. It’s amazing. Polls suggest that most of these races are within five points.

Lots of reasons for Florida Man (and Florida Woman) to get out the vote! Volunteer for a campaign near you, and learn more about voting at vote.org.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/24/why-your-vote-matters-florida/feed/0Why Your Vote Matters: North Carolinahttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/21/why-your-vote-matters-north-carolina/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/21/why-your-vote-matters-north-carolina/#commentsSun, 21 Oct 2018 17:56:33 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21293Part of a series on Key Elections Near You.

One of the most remarkable states in this year’s election is North Carolina. Thanks to a lax state constitution, more than anywhere else in the Union, partisans have had the opportunity in North Carolina to isolate government from voters in a remarkable manner. But in two weeks, voters have an opportunity to get the Tar Heel State back on track.

Voters will choose a key state Supreme Court justice and the Congressional delegation, and vote on multiple critical ballot questions. These races will affect not just Congress, but life for Carolinians for decades to come – how judges are appointed and how elections are run. I cannot think of a more essential place for people to get out the vote statewide.

The fire-breathing North Carolina legislative majority has committed or attempted a wide range of actions to maintain its own power: gerrymandering, limiting voting access, and changing election rules (even in the middle of a campaign).

They can do all of this because of their unusually broad powers. The state constitution gives the legislature the sole power to draw legislative districts and congressional districts. Also, even in areas where the governor has a veto, a three-fifths vote by the legislature is enough to override – and gerrymandering gave them a large enough majority to meet that threshold. In this situation, the only meaningful check on their power has been federal or state courts.

For these reasons, the state Supreme Court candidacy of voting rights advocate Anita Earls is especially important because of voting-rights and redistricting issues. North Carolina’s state Supreme Court is, in my estimation, the single most likely path for that state to limit partisan gerrymandering. North Carolina has one of the most famous and extreme gerrymanders in the nation, sending 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats to Washington even if Democrats win a majority of votes. This is a sharp change from the last redistricting cycle, when essentially the same geographic population patterns were exploited by Democrats to elect 8 Democrats and 5 Republicans.

However, the Republican levee was lowered somewhat when federal courts required North Carolina to undo a racial gerrymander. African-Americans still only had the opportunity to elect three representatives, so they didn’t get any benefit at the time. The new map packed Democrats to a lesser degree into the three districts, which then left smaller margins of safety to the Republicans in the other 10 districts.

Disapproval of Trump has hit North Carolina particularly hard. In four Congressional districts where polls are available – the 2nd, the 7th, the 9th, and the 13th – opinion has swung 12 to 23 points toward the Democrats compared with Clinton-Trump 2016. These are districts in which Trump won 53-56% of the vote. For comparison, under the racial gerrymander, in 2012 Romney won the closest four Republican districts with 55-56% of the vote. So the racial gerrymandering decision may have lowered the threshold for flipping districts by several percentage points.

In polls, Democrats are competitive in all four districts: D+1%, D+4%, tie, and R+3%, respectively. To sum up: if any of these seats flips on November 6th, it will be thanks to a combination of federal court action and a blue wave of popular opinion.

>>>

Partisanship on the ballot does not stop there. The North Carolina Supreme Court currently has 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans. Earls is favored to win, which would make it 5 to 2. On the other hand, if she loses, Republicans have threatened to add two Republican justices to the court, which is allowed under their constitution. This would make a 5-4 Republican court – and remove the largest remaining check on the legislature’s power.

All these measures have attracted strong opposition from Democrats and good government advocates. The election-board and judicial-appointments referenda are opposed by both Democratic and Republican former governors. There seems to be a general sense in North Carolina on all sides that the legislature has finally gone too far.

Saturday at 9:30am Eastern on CNN, I joined @smerconish to talk about midterm elections. On my mind, a bug in democracy: this year Democrats could win the popular vote, yet still not retake the House.

P.S. We didn’t get to the part about how to repair the bugs. Basically, Democrats are overwhelmingly likely to win the national popular vote (currently hovering around an 8-point margin). But they may still not retake the House (they’re only 2 points above estimated threshold for that). If that happens, it will be because of gerrymandering. Fixing that is a state-by-state battle. Help us with that!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/19/saturday-on-cnn-with-smerconish-900am-eastern/feed/6Why Your Vote Matters: Wisconsinhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/19/why-your-vote-matters-wisconsin/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/19/why-your-vote-matters-wisconsin/#commentsFri, 19 Oct 2018 11:43:19 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21258As the election draws near, I’ll write some short essays on why it’s important to vote in specific critical states. Normally at PEC we focus on House and Senate races. But there are tons of important state and local races as well. They’re collected at the PEC Key Races page.

Let’s start with Wisconsin. Wisconsin has same-day voter registration, so there’s a lot that activists can do to influence the election there. And this year, Wisconsin is especially important.

First, as many PEC readers know, I’ve become quite focused on redistricting. In a close state, the person who holds the redistricter’s pen can swing up to half the districts in a state toward his/her political party. So no matter how much we protect the right to vote, it can all be for nothing if we don’t make redistricting fairer.

The exception is statewide races. These can’t be gerrymandered. And whoever wins statewide races in 2018 will be in office for the 2020 election, the Census, and redistricting. As it turns out, Wisconsin has a very competitive governor’s race. Former State Superintendent of Education Tony Evers (D) is running a highly competitive race against incumbent Governor Scott Walker (R). Walker’s a polarizing figure, and has radically altered the landscape in Wisconsin, weakening unions and generally running a scorched-earth strategy. And Wisconsin Assembly is heavily gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. If Evers wins, that will guarantee that both parties will be at the table when it’s redistricting time in 2021 – and almost certainly make Wisconsin a competitive state for both parties going forward.

In addition, the state race for Attorney General looks to be competitive. Two GOP-held seats and one open seat (SD17, SD19 & SD5) for the State Senate could decide party control of that chamber. SD1 was unexpectedly picked up by Democrats in a special election and is being defended now.

Finally, there’s a close House district: Paul Ryan’s old district, WI-01, where construction worker Randy Bryce (D) is running against Bryan Stein (R).

Overall, I’d say there’s a lot for cheeseheads to get excited about this November!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/19/why-your-vote-matters-wisconsin/feed/1Triage and Refocushttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/17/triage-and-refocus/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/17/triage-and-refocus/#commentsThu, 18 Oct 2018 03:43:13 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21240A curious inverse law seems to be at work. As politics gets louder and more extreme, public opinion becomes less volatile. As measured by public opinion, this trend dates to the mid-1990s, when Newt Gingrich led the charge to take control of Congress – a fateful turn in national politics. Fewer voters cross partisan lines than ever. It’s the heat death of modern politics.

This trend was apparent in 2016, especially in the home stretch. Trump stayed afloat because of partisan polarization, and therefore loyalty to him no matter what he did or said. As I wrote immediately after the election, state-by-state polling errors were largest in red states, suggesting that Republican voters came home in the final weeks of the campaign.

Looks like we’re heading down that road again, at least in the Senate.
Until Labor Day or so, Democrats looked like they had a shot at taking control of the Senate. They started with 43 Democratic/Independent seats that either were not up for election, or appeared to be likely wins (counting West Virginia’s incumbent Joe Manchin as a likely win for Democrats based on polling data). After that, the path was, starting from the largest Democratic margin, NJ / MT / IN / FL / AZ / NV / MO. That gets to 50 Democratic/Independent seats. Then they needed to win in Texas, Tennessee, or North Dakota.

This positioning eroded in September, and then fell off a cliff at the start of October as Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation battle came to a head. Considering the timing, the simplest explanation is that the Kavanaugh battle made Republican voters come home – just as they did in 2016.

Here are the medians for the most recent three polls, compared with the end of September.
You can see the pattern here. All races moved toward Republicans or stayed flat, with larger changes in the more Republican states. The change is especially apparent in Texas, Tennessee, and North Dakota – all strongly Republican states. It sure looks like McConnell and Trump succeeded in firing up their base.

In today’s snapshot, 48 Democratic/Independent seats is the median outcome, with a likely range of 44 to 50 seats. It would would take a 2.0-point swing toward Democrats to make 50 seats the median outcome. And it would take a 6.5-point swing to get them to 51. For now, it looks like the Republicans have a red wall.

What’s the bottom line for activists? It’s time to regroup. The House Meta-Margin is D+1.8%, which means that House control is very much up in the air. That’s becoming a pretty good place to put one’s energy. (find out what a Meta-Margin is)

For activists on either side who want to give money, I would recommend focusing on the closest Senate races (NV/MO/FL/AZ/IN/MT), and on close House races in those states. The close House races are NV-03, AZ-01, FL-15, FL-18, FL-26, and FL-27, where polls are within five points. Helping there will help that candidate – and also move the needle on a close Senate race. I’ve updated the donation link at left, and Republicans can still give to the NRSC.

You should not just give money. November’s election has enormous impact on the future of our democracy. You can get out the vote near you:

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/17/triage-and-refocus/feed/6Ursula’s optimization problemhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/15/ursulas-optimization-problem/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/15/ursulas-optimization-problem/#commentsMon, 15 Oct 2018 15:04:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21235Ursula Kwong-Brown, a composer and multimedia artist, had an optimization problem. She’s spent over 10 years in higher education and often had to move several times a year, and sometimes spent time at home with her parents. She’s registered to vote in more districts than she can count! Where to vote?

Thankfully, it’s legal to be registered to vote in many places as long as you only actually vote once. She teamed up with Jason T. Roff and his team at FirstFactory.com to generate a cool tool: Make My Vote Matter.

This tool takes your hometown address and your school address, then tells you where your vote is more powerful. Do you go to college in Virginia, but your hometown is in Maryland? If you consider Virginia your domicile, depending on where you live you might want to vote there. It’s a great application of some of the same ideas that I show in the Congressional District Finder in the right sidebar.

Try it out!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/15/ursulas-optimization-problem/feed/5Supreme Court partisanship comes into full viewhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/09/supreme-court-partisanship-comes-into-full-view/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/09/supreme-court-partisanship-comes-into-full-view/#commentsTue, 09 Oct 2018 16:07:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21225
Kavanaugh’s successful confirmation vote was the closest ever. It’s the culmination of a two-decade trend in all-out partisan warfare, the seeds of which were planted when Gingrich and McConnell swept into power in 1994. It’s now reached a seeming pinnacle with the confirmation of a party insider who was a player in the Starr investigation, the Bush v. Gore 2000 battle, and the theft of Senate Judiciary Committee files.

In other news: Students, you should figure out where to vote! This very cool new site, Make My Vote Matter, helps you do that. Do it soon – registration deadlines are closing fast!

1) Students: Figure out the place where your vote matters the most. This site, Make My Vote Matter, figures it out for you. It’s developed by a scientist, Ursula Wong-Brown, and shows you which address has more competitive House/Senate/governor races. Here’s Ursula’s list of voter registration information for all 50 states.

2) Get Out The Vote: Get out the vote near you, in places where each vote counts the most. We have two tools for that at PEC: Lucas Manning’s finder using all races (House/Senate/governor/ballot) and Sharon Machlis’s finder, focused on House races. Whichever side you’re on, contact your local Democratic or Republican candidate or party committee.

3) Give money. Give strategically. Donations can extend your reach across the country. You might be passionate about a particular race – but it’s better to triage, and pick races where your money makes the most difference. I write about key Senate and governor’s races here. For Democrats, they are collected at this ActBlue site. For Republicans, the National Republican Senate Committee is a clearinghouse.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/06/three-ways-to-maximize-your-power/feed/0Post-Labor Day movement: for Republicans, a Kavanaugh effect?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/05/post-labor-day-movement-a-kavanaugh-effect/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/05/post-labor-day-movement-a-kavanaugh-effect/#commentsFri, 05 Oct 2018 13:24:08 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21201We’re off to a late start this year; more balls in the air, especially gerrymandering, and a busy term.

The House and Senate calculations are running for 2018, though we’re still polishing the display. The calculations are designed to pick up movement quickly. Here’s something notable: since Labor Day, both indicators show distinct movement, about 2 percentage points, toward Republicans.
Now a word about the calculations, and a preview of the Senate snapshot.

The House graph shows a moving median of the generic congressional ballot: last three polls or two weeks, whichever is greater, and a 90% confidence band. That’s a snapshot of current conditions as measured by opinion polls. It captures genuine shifts of D-versus-R opinion, as well as transient changes in voter enthusiasm.

Compare this moving curve with my estimate of where the national House vote needs to be for control to flip, D+6%. Finally, the graph shows an extrapolation based on special elections, which in the past have been predictive of the November outcome.

For most of the summer, Democrats have been favored to retake the House, though not overwhelmingly so. The threshold is high because of a combination of population patterns and partisan gerrymandering. Currently, Democrats need to take 23 seats to win control of the chamber. Without gerrymandering, they would only need to gain around 11 seats.

Since the beginning of September, the House estimator has moved substantially, and now shows control as a perfect tossup. Considering the special-elections result, conditions may well swing back toward the Democrats.

Is this shift a random fluctuation? Probably not, since an independent calculation gives a similar result: the Senate snapshot.

Here is a graph of the average of the entire Senate outcome distribution, from 10 key races (AZ/FL/IN/MO/MT/MD/NJ/NV/TN/TX). Data come from RealClearPolitics and electoral-vote.com. Because this calculation uses polls only, it gives about as high a time resolution as we are likely to get. Again, note the sudden shift toward Republicans starting at the beginning of September.

It’s possible to compare Senate and House movement directly by calculating the Senate meta-margin. Recall that the meta-margin is defined as how much polls would have to shift across the board in order to make D-versus-R control a perfect tossup. Currently, the meta-margin is R+2.8%. On Labor Day, it was R+1.4%. That 1.4-point shift is comparable to the two-point shift in the House calculation.
So far this year, the 2018 rule of thumb has been that an overall shift of 1.7 points in Senate polls leads to a 1-seat shift in the likely number of seats. With Senate control hanging in the balance, small shifts are highly consequential.

However, there’s a really important caveat: midterm polling errors can be large. In 2014, the overall error was close to 5 points. So while Republicans are favored to retain the Senate, the risk to their control is very real, perhaps 30% even based on today’s snapshot.

What’s behind the September shift? One obvious possibility is the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, which has gripped the nation’s attention. Trump’s approval ratings continue to be stable and dismally low, and it is no surprise that intensity on the Republican side has been faint. But with such a highly visible Supreme Court fight, many voters may be reminded of why they supported Republicans in the first place. That would tend to boost GOP voter enthusiasm.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/05/post-labor-day-movement-a-kavanaugh-effect/feed/8Local talk: Sam Wang on the road ahead for gerrymandering reformhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/03/local-talk-sam-wang-on-the-road-ahead-for-gerrymandering-reform/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/03/local-talk-sam-wang-on-the-road-ahead-for-gerrymandering-reform/#respondWed, 03 Oct 2018 12:30:00 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21091As part of the Center for Information Technology Policy’s lecture series, next Monday, October 8th at 4:30pm, I will speak on “Fixing Bugs in Democracy: The Road Ahead for Gerrymandering Reform.” If you’re in the Princeton area, come hear about how data science can help empower activists and reformers – and terminate gerrymandering.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/10/03/local-talk-sam-wang-on-the-road-ahead-for-gerrymandering-reform/feed/0Princeton Gerrymandering Project wins a prize for state-by-state gerrymandering standardshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/25/princeton-gerrymandering-project-proposes-a-new-standard-for-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/25/princeton-gerrymandering-project-proposes-a-new-standard-for-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsTue, 25 Sep 2018 18:12:14 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21193I’m pleased to announce that Brian Remlinger, Ben Williams, and I have won first prize in Common Cause’s contest for new tools to combat partisan gerrymandering! Common Cause’s press release is here.

This year’s contest asked for legal theories for fighting partisan gerrymandering. In response, Brian Remlinger, Ben Williams, and I proposed that statistical tests of opportunity and outcome can be applied under state constitutions to bring lawsuits. There are multiple tests, and we put them together into a single framework. Like a Swiss Army knife, we hope that our approach can be used all over the nation – in North Carolina, in Maryland, and elsewhere. Our contest entry is available as a preprint, and is accepted for publication at the Election Law Journal.

In addition to our entry, second prize goes to Michael D. McDonald’s team at SUNY Binghamton. Third prize goes to John Curiel and Tyler Steelman at University of North Carolina. Congratulations to all!

This is a win for the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. We’ve been hard at work on two fronts: (a) establishing a state-by-state approach to fair representation, and (b) building an open datahub and linking it to software for all Americans to participate in redistricting. Today’s win contributes to the state-by-state approach.

For the datahub, we have made considerable progress as well – that’s going to be huge. More to say on that topic another day…

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/25/princeton-gerrymandering-project-proposes-a-new-standard-for-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/2North Carolina’s Second Route to Redistricting Reformhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/04/north-carolinas-second-route-to-redistricting-reform/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/04/north-carolinas-second-route-to-redistricting-reform/#commentsTue, 04 Sep 2018 14:47:56 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21172The path to redistricting reform in North Carolina has gone through federal courts – but looks shaky at the moment. New in the Washington Post, Rick Ober and I point out a second path, through state courts. This second path does not require a federal standard!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/09/04/north-carolinas-second-route-to-redistricting-reform/feed/3We drew a fairer map for the Virginia legislature – and so can you!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/30/how-hard-is-it-for-the-virginia-legislature-to-draw-a-fairer-map/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/30/how-hard-is-it-for-the-virginia-legislature-to-draw-a-fairer-map/#commentsThu, 30 Aug 2018 04:40:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21141﻿
A federal court has ordered the Virginia legislature to redraw 33 districts in the eastern part of the state, in order to undo a racial gerrymander. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is pleased to announce its first open-data project. Ben Williams and Will Adler drew a proposed map for them. Explore it through our interactive above (bigger view here). Also, we are giving out the data needed for people to create their own maps!

In the Virginian-Pilot, we write about how we did it. Below is part of the existing map around Hampton Roads (the area served by the Virginian-Pilot), and next to it a model map that we drew using precinct geographic information.

The gerrymandered region has 33 of Virginia’s 100 Assembly districts. African-American voters were crammed into 11 of those districts. Our map undoes that packing and gives them 16 districts where they have the opportunity to elect representatives.

Here’s a look at the whole map (click to enlarge):
It’s actually not easy to obtain accurate precinct-boundaries. We went to considerable efforts to gather this information. We are pleased to publish all of it for anyone and everyone to use. The data, along with our reform map, are available at this repository. We’ll also publish a full technical report soon.

Full disclosure, you’re going to need software like Dave’s Redistricting or ArcGIS or the like. We generated the above maps using Maptitude, which is widely accepted but has limited distribution. Improving software access for reformers is a major future goal for the Princeton Gerrymandering Project!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/30/how-hard-is-it-for-the-virginia-legislature-to-draw-a-fairer-map/feed/6Optimal Donations 2018: Senate and Governor’s raceshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/26/optimal-donations-2018-governors-races-but-not-house-races/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/26/optimal-donations-2018-governors-races-but-not-house-races/#commentsSun, 26 Aug 2018 20:40:12 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21054In 2016, I promised to get away from giving you probabilities. Here I show that under current conditions, you can optimize your donations without such calculations.

As has been the case in past elections, I’d like to point out key races where supporters of either Democrats or Republicans will get the maximum impact for their donation. (I’m assuming that control of either chamber of Congress has comparable value – see reader James McDonald’s point.)

This year, I don’t recommend giving to House races for two reasons.

There are just too many of them. Over 80 districts are less Republican-leaning than Ohio’s 12th district, whose margin was razor-thin in the recent special election. Compared with the six key Senate races I’ve listed at left, your donations would be diluted by more than a factor of 13. This is the big reason.

Under current conditions, we are closer to threshold for switching Senate control than for switching House control. Therefore Senate control is closer to the knife’s edge.

Taken together, these two reasons dilute the impact of your donation by a factor of 30-100*. This can change, depending on how the overall odds of House or Senate control change over the next two months.

Instead of giving you probabilities, which leads to possible complacency, I will simply ask: how far are Democrats/Republicans from threshold for House or Senate control?

In regard to effective giving, start with individual races. Once the margin between two candidates gets beyond about 5 percentage points, the probabilities get saturated. Money and activism don’t really move the needle. Instead, it is more strategic to look for races that are closer to threshold. Giving to, say, Dianne Feinstein’s re-elect campaign would be a waste of money. The same would be true for giving money to Senator Roger Wicker – again, no point. But the Nevada Senate race between Jacky Rosen (D) and incumbent Dean Heller (R) – now there’s a close race.

The same logic applies to House and Senate control. But now we have to both identify close individual races, and also ask where the chamber stands as a whole. Here are some examples of my quantitative analysis from 2014 and 2012.

With all that in mind, here is some information about 2018.

I estimate that for Democrats to have an even-odds chance to take control of the House, they would have to win the national popular vote by about 6 percentage points. I like to look at two indicators that reflect real voter behavior at a national level: special elections (i.e. real voting) and the generic Congressional ballot question (i.e. opinion polls).

Midterm opinion polling is hard to do accurately, and was five points off in 2014. Also, it can change over time. So let me put that aside until a later post.

In special elections since 2016, Democrats have outperformed Hillary Clinton’s performance against Donald Trump by an average of 11 percentage points. She won the popular vote by 2 percentage points, so if this pattern were applied to the whole nation, it would translate to a 13-point popular margin. That would be the biggest margin for either party since the post-Watergate year of 1976, when Democrats won the national popular vote by 13.6 points (and before that, 17 points in the Watergate year of 1974). Historically, special election performance has been within about 6 points of the mark, so we could expect to see a margin of 7 to 19 points this fall.

Thirteen percentage points is a lot. Even a margin half as large would still be enough to switch several dozen seats from Republican to Democratic, and make Democratic control likelier than not. Because 13 points is 7 points above the magic threshold, I’d give Democrats a handicap (to use golf terminology) of 7 percentage points favoring them.

The Senate is considerably closer to the knife’s edge.Senate control is said to be a difficult challenge for Democrats. However, the eventual seat margin will be close, and the number of critical races is small. If we look at current polling margins, a swing of 3 points would be enough to put Democrats on the brink of having 51 seats. So in the Senate, Republicans have a handicap of 3 percentage points favoring them.

I should throw in here that close Senate races tend to break mostly in the same direction on Election Day. Which way they’ll break isn’t known; one way gets Democrats to 51-52 seats, and the other way gets them to 45-46 seats. It appears that Senate control could go either way.

Bottom line, Senate control is on a knife’s edge more than House control. I could convert that to probabilities, but my feeling is that does not have a clear benefit. (Ballpark, it’s 0.9 for Democrats in the House, 0.7 for Republicans in the Senate.) For now, I will go out on a giant limb and say that the basic reason for paying more attention to the Senate is

7 > 3.

By the way, longtime readers of PEC will recognize these quantities as being conceptually related to the meta-margin, which I have calculated for Presidential races. To give you an idea of uncertainties in this quantity in tight situations, the meta-margin was around Clinton +1.3% in 2016 and ended up as Trump +0.7%, a 2-point error that was highly consequential.

>>>

In addition, I have added governor’s races. I focus on one race: Wisconsin, with Tony Evers (D) challenging the incumbent, Scott Walker (R). This is a long-term investment. Governors elected this year will oversee redistricting in 2021. Of the Egregious Eight gerrymandered states, Wisconsin is the one state where the governor’s office is the only identifiable route to attaining fairer districting. (For other close governor’s races, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball estimates include Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, and Ohio).

Still thinking about the House? That’s good – this is no year for giving money and leaving it at that. This is a year for getting out there and doing everything you can. I suggest a two-prong strategy: (1) give money to national Senate/governor races (key races are listed at this ActBlue site for Democrats; Republicans can give directly to the NRSC), and (2) engage in personal get-out-the-vote activity in a district near you. Find a competitive district near you using this tool!

As I wrote above, I don’t recommend donating to House races. I guess an exception is close races in Florida, where increasing turnout in a Congressional district also moves the statewide Senate vote. So…Florida districts 18, 26, and 27.

*Making this calculation accurately requires using probabilities. Many considerations could go into it , such as estimating probability distributions and advertising costs.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/26/optimal-donations-2018-governors-races-but-not-house-races/feed/30Thomas Hofeller, 1943-2018http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/19/thomas-hofeller-1943-2018/
Sun, 19 Aug 2018 13:59:19 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21081Despite the near-certainty that Democrats will win the national popular vote for House races in November, I still estimate a 10% probability (and other forecasters, up to 25%) that Republicans will retain control. Why? Gerrymandering.

More than anyone else, Tom Hofeller was responsible for the modern age of aggressive redistricting. He carried out this program to an extent that nobody in either party had ever done before. To get an idea of how his work altered and eroded American democracy, see this Atlantic profile of his work. Reid Wilson writes about his life in The Hill.

I’ve left this topic alone for some time, but we must revisit it every time one of the items is checked off in a major way. On August 15, 2018, it’s Trump’s targeting of government officials Peter Strzok at the FBI and former CIA director John Brennan. Those enlarge the list of offenses under item #5 below.

In January 2017, shortly after the Inauguration, I provided a ten-item checklist of actions that would be signs of authoritarianism. I provided this in advance of any actions that could happen. Then I updated the list in May 2017.

Since that time, many actions have been repeated; some people may have become desensitized. Strikingly, it appears that President Trump still has levels of support above 80% from voters in his own party. Truly, the Republican Party, once the party of Eisenhower or Reagan, has become the party of Trump.

In 2017 I said that the judiciary acted as an institutional check on executive power. That is now in question, now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Muslim ban in the Trump v. Hawaii decision. And the President, while he is under investigation, appears ready to appoint a second member of the Supreme Court.

In this updated version of the checklist, we are at a score of six out of ten. For these six items, I have not documented repeated instances of the action. Feel free to lay out the evidence for your favorite offense in comments. The shootings in Annapolis may qualify as a seventh item, incitement of violence against individuals.

Finally, I leave out the degree of competence with which each action was done. This is important, since some degree of competence is essential for authoritarian rule to take hold. The current Administration seems particularly maladroit. But it is also setting a tone that may persist until a more competent officeholder holds power.

Loss of press access to the White House. Access is reduced substantially; press briefings consist of a river of lies that is something to behold. Over time, more assertive reporters such as Jorge Ramos, Jim Acosta, Kaitlan Collins have been tossed out. YES

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group (e.g. LGBT, Muslim, and other groups). (2/16: also the intelligence community). And now, the firing of FBI director James Comey…though really, this is more in the category of obstruction of justice. YES

Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court. Looked like it was going to happen, and certainly he’s fulminated about disbanding an appeals court. In the end, it didn’t happen. However, judging from the ruling on the Muslim ban, it seems clear that the Supreme Court is potentially not that much of a check. Hard to score this one as a yes. But it’s less necessary if courts cooperate with questionable actions.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/15/the-authoritarian-checklist-annapolis-update-june-2018/feed/31OH-12 is ominous for GOP in House…and the Senatehttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/07/oh-12-is-in-line-with-46-other-special-elections-in-2018/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/07/oh-12-is-in-line-with-46-other-special-elections-in-2018/#commentsWed, 08 Aug 2018 03:36:27 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21035At the moment, in the special election in Ohio’s gerrymandered 12th district, Republican Troy Balderson leads Democrat Danny O’Connor by 0.9 percentage point (with 0.6% of the vote going to the Green Party candidate). This is a loss for Democrats, but it’s a 10-point swing from the Clinton-Trump margin in 2016. That’s very much in line with special elections all year, and it has implications for November.

In 46 special elections in 2018, the overall swing from 2016 has averaged 12 points toward Democrats. Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by a little over 2 percentage points. If this swing were to hold up in November 2018, it would mean a 14-point win in the national House popular vote. I estimate that a 6-point win would be just enough to flip control. A 14-point win is massive, enough for a gain of over 50 seats.

Another piece of evidence points toward a building Democratic wave: Harry Enten of CNN has pointed out that Democratic pollsters are reporting their internal polls far more often than Republican pollsters. This observation corresponds to a minimum gain of 30 seats for Democrats. It’s hard to tell the ceiling because the D/R ratio has not been this high before.

As for the generic Congressional poll? Mostly ignore it. Even in the home stretch it misses some aspect of public opinion, probably because midterm turnout is hard to estimate. However, I will note one thing; it’s currently showing a lead of about 7.5 percentage points for Democrats – much less than implied by the two indicators above. If polls are underestimating election-day Democratic support, any discrepancy is important for close Senate races in Tennessee, Texas, and elsewhere. Recall that Senate polls in 2014 were off: in that case, Republicans overperformed against a Democratic incumbent president. Now the shoe is on the other foot.

What can you do this year? Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, my advice is the same:

Elsewhere in the country, donate to the most competitive Senate races. I curate these here.

And what if you’re a third-party voter, like the 0.6% who voted for the Green Party in OH-12? I’d say you lack situational awareness of what it means to live in a two-party system. Might be time to rethink that attitude.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/07/oh-12-is-in-line-with-46-other-special-elections-in-2018/feed/9Optimizing Your Efforts in 2018: Part II, the Senatehttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/02/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-ii-the-senate/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/02/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-ii-the-senate/#commentsThu, 02 Aug 2018 05:04:35 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21011
In 2018, what’s a swing state? In many cases, it’s not the swing states that everyone focused on in 2016. How should you optimize your activism and donations? tl;dr: You can donate via the PEC ActBlue page (if you like Democrats) or the NRSC (if you like Republicans).

The reason for the difference from 2016 is obvious: this year’s big questions are not the Presidency, but who will control the House, the Senate, and governor’s mansions and legislatures. In some cases, the hot races are still in purple states (Nevada, Florida), where the statewide vote is closely divided. But just as often, maybe more so, regional factors matter.

Not counting these races, Democrats are favored to end up with 46 seats, Republicans with 48. To take control, Democrats would have to win five out of the six knife-edge races. This is a tall order but not at all impossible. Races that look close at this point in the season tend to end up breaking in the same direction. For a probabilistic look, see David Byler’s Senate election model.

In addition, one might keep an eye on the Arizona and New Jersey races, though I think Democrats will likely win both. Conversely, Texas is still looking like a Republican hold, at least for now.

>>>

After you’re done donating, you can also look for a place to campaign near you. Door-to-door campaigning is by far the most effective known way of increasing turnout. Swing districts are all over the United States, as you can tell by looking at our 2018 Competitive District Finder.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/02/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-ii-the-senate/feed/6Support the Princeton Gerrymandering Project!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/08/01/support-our-gerrymandering-work/
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:00:38 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19886The Princeton Gerrymandering Project does nonpartisan analysis to understand and eliminate partisan gerrymandering at a state-by-state level. The Supreme Court acknowledged the validity of our math but declined to act. Looking ahead, the strongest route to reform is at a state-by-state level—a federalist approach. Our interdisciplinary team aims to give activists and legislators the tools they need to detect offenses and craft bulletproof, bipartisan reform. Our analysis is published widely, and our work is used by legislators and reformers of all communities, without regard to partisan affiliation.

In the next few years, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project has the following goals:

State Reports: We will prepare reports that include demonstration maps, as well as statistical and legal analyses to help good-government groups craft lasting reform strategies.

Improved Communication: We will show statisticians how to advance reform, activists how to write foolproof laws, and lawyers how to create arguments backed by mathematical rigor.

PGP OpenPrecincts: Currently, there is no central repository of precinct-level geographic data from across the country available to the public. This data has to be collected from thousands of counties nationwide. We will provide this data to the public, through a combination of our own data-gathering and data-cleaning efforts, as well as coordinating the activities of civic technologists nationwide. The information will be provided to the public through portals that will allow them to use the data to evaluate plans and to draw their own maps.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project relies entirely on the financial support of private donors and foundations in order to continue our efforts through 2021. Contributions to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project are tax deductible.

Wire Transfers (domestic or international) should be payable in U.S. dollars. Please notify us by email at gerrymander@princeton.edu in advance of your intent to wire funds so that we may provide you with the bank receiving instructions.

For more information on how to structure gifts or bequests to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, please contact Prof. Sam Wang at (609) 258-0388 or by email at sswang@princeton.edu.

Thank you for your support!

]]>Stop Partisan Gerrymandering With These Three Weird Trickshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/16/these-three-tricks-will-prevent-partisan-gerrymandering-even-with-a-hostile-supreme-court/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/16/these-three-tricks-will-prevent-partisan-gerrymandering-even-with-a-hostile-supreme-court/#commentsMon, 16 Jul 2018 19:29:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=21000When it comes to partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court whiffed. The road ahead for federal action is not looking great. However, that doesn’t mean it’s game over, as we reported today in The American Prospect. In fact, there’s considerable hope.

We looked into the laws, constitutions, and political landscape in every state where there’s currently an extreme gerrymander. In every case we found at least one remedy. In North Carolina, it’s the state constitution. In Maryland, it’s the possibility of a bipartisan process. And in Michigan, there’s a powerful voter initiative.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/16/these-three-tricks-will-prevent-partisan-gerrymandering-even-with-a-hostile-supreme-court/feed/8Optimizing Your Efforts in 2018: Part I, the Househttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/14/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-i-the-house/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/14/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-i-the-house/#commentsSat, 14 Jul 2018 14:48:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20986The odds moderately favor a switch in control of the House of Representatives in 2018. But make no mistake, things could go either way. This November will be a battle of inches.

For many of you, the battle’s coming to a district near you. We’re renewing a tool that made its debut two years ago. Sharon Machlis has very kindly updated her Congressional District finder to display swing districts for 2018. It’s awesome – check it out!

Many of the closest races will be run in the suburbs of America. Here are some high-value areas:

Six swing districts are within 100 miles of New York City.

Five are within 50 miles of Los Angeles.

Five are within 50 miles of Chicago.

Note that this tool is useful no matter which major party you favor. The same districts are targets for flipping – and prizes worth defending. So if you have any interest at all in the direction of this country, this resource is for you.

By campaigning or donating in close races, you can have many times the impact that you would by voting alone. Anyone in the United States can get involved – not just citizens, but also foreign nationals (see the Federal Election Commission website).

Soon we will merge this functionality with information about statewide races: Senate, governor, and initiatives. That’s part of a site upgrade that is in the works. Soon, my droogies, soon…

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/14/optimizing-your-efforts-in-2018-part-i-the-house/feed/7Three advance indicators of the House outcome in 2018http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/11/three-advance-indicators-of-the-house-outcome-in-2018-point-in-the-same-direction/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/07/11/three-advance-indicators-of-the-house-outcome-in-2018-point-in-the-same-direction/#commentsWed, 11 Jul 2018 23:19:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20981Three indicators point, with varying degrees of strength, toward a Democratic takeover of the House in this November’s election. Two of them are the usual suspects: the generic Congressional ballot and special elections. There’s a third one that Harry Enten of CNN has noticed: which side is *not* talking about its internal polls.

I’m still processing this and other information. For a summary of my current thoughts, read this thread.

If you have other data-based indicators, please share them in comments. I welcome data-based analysis in the other direction.

The election’s 117 days away. Polling and special-election data put some bounds on the range of likely outcomes for the House. With caveats (I won’t be shy about those!), a thread.

]]>Kennedy’s outhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/27/kennedys-out/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/27/kennedys-out/#commentsWed, 27 Jun 2018 23:10:29 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20947Action on partisan gerrymandering by the Supreme Court was already on its last legs with the Gill decision. With Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, at least now we won’t have to sit around wondering what will happen next.

To tell the truth, he seemed so passive this term. Stayed with the conservatives on every decision, and didn’t take the slow fat pitch that was sent his way in Gill v. Whitford. And that defeated-sounding concurrence in Trump v. Hawaii…the writing was on the wall.

What’s left? Action at a state-by-state level. The renewed interest in federalism (the principle that law and policy originate both nationally and locally) on the liberal side is going to get even greater. On the gerrymandering front, there is more to say – a surprising amount, actually, and surprisingly good. I will explain more in due course, but not right now.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/27/kennedys-out/feed/4Can Open Data Save Redistricting Reform?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/26/can-open-data-save-redistricting-reform/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/26/can-open-data-save-redistricting-reform/#commentsTue, 26 Jun 2018 11:40:29 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20944In light of the recent rulings on partisan and racial gerrymandering from the Supreme Court, it’s time for reformers to go to the trenches. A magic bullet in the form of a ruling from the Supremes would have been great, but I’m not holding my breath.

New in The American Prospect, Ben Williams, John O’Neill, and I describe how Open Data can help in the next round of battles. Read on!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/26/can-open-data-save-redistricting-reform/feed/4Texas successfully runs out the clock – and sets an ominous standardhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/25/texas-successfully-runs-out-the-clock/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/25/texas-successfully-runs-out-the-clock/#commentsMon, 25 Jun 2018 15:09:27 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20929First, the partisan-gerrymandering news. The North Carolina case, Rucho v. Common Cause, was sent back for reconsideration (“vacate and remand”) in light of the Court’s decision in Gill v. Whitford. Retrying Rucho would take a while, so hopefully they will find a faster way.

Now, to racial gerrymandering. In the last redistricting case of this year’s term, Abbott v. Perez, the Supreme Court has ruled against a racial gerrymandering claim. Justice Alito wrote the 5-4 opinion here. With one exception (Texas House District 90), the decision locks in most of a temporary (but according to the plaintiffs, inadequate) map drawn by a trial court in 2012.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had gone out of its way to preserve a racially biased map. And now most of a probable racial gerrymander stays in place for the rest of the cycle. That’s what comes from having no clear standards: a decade-long shell game that leaves plaintiffs with little or no remedy.

If applied to other cases, Justice Alito’s discriminatory-intent-standard analysis and the jurisdictional arguments may spell trouble for future Voting Rights Act and gerrymandering claims of any kind. This would not affect the re-hearing of the North Carolina case, since there the legislators explicitly conceded discriminatory partisan intent. But it would set the bar extremely high – perhaps impossibly high – for future claims. Rick Hasen has more to say.

It seems to me that a critical misstep was the fact that the trial court drew a “temporary” fix in 2012 that was then passed into law. I wonder…if they had a faster way to draw remedial maps, I wonder, could this mess have been avoided?

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/25/texas-successfully-runs-out-the-clock/feed/3Both Sides Nowhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/20/after-gill-three-ways-forward/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/20/after-gill-three-ways-forward/#commentsWed, 20 Jun 2018 22:06:11 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20917Although I wasn’t thrilled to see the Supreme Court kick the can down the road, the Roberts decision and the Kagan concurrence are quite clarifying, logically speaking. These justices have, in some ways, sorted things out nicely.

The Roberts decision focuses on equal protection and the 14th Amendment. Practically speaking, what that means is that voters have to be identified as being specifically injured. This is a lot like racial gerrymandering cases, an area with which the court is quite familiar. It also has the advantage that party, race, and other ways to target people can be handled by the same inquiry.

The bad news is that this involves a lot of detailed work: identifying dozens of plaintiffs, drawing alternative maps, and knowing enough precinct-level geography and voting information to evaluate partisanship and draw alternatives. These requirements tilt the playing field against reform organizations. In addition, a precinct-by-precinct approach means that remedies will usually be more limited than what a statewide measure would lead. But at least it’s a path forward.

The Kagan concurrence is nicer, statistically speaking. She points out that if political parties have the same rights as individuals, then they can be harmed, representationally speaking. This opens the way to using statewide statistics, which the Roberts decision says we have under control. It’s reminiscent of the Citizens United decision, which held that corporations have the speech rights of individuals. And who wrote that decision? None other than Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the swing vote then – and now, in partisan gerrymandering cases.

I wish the court would adopt the Kagan approach. But there’s a substantial chance that they won’t. At least Kagan has described a theory to help litigants file suit in state courts. Wherever the state constitution has a First Amendment-like clause, her concurrence could be quite useful.

In the meantime, it looks like a new need has come to the foreground: a need to evaluate partisanship using maps and individual districts. As much as I had hoped a geography-less approach would be found suitable, it looks like we’re all geographers now.

Fortunately the Princeton Gerrymandering Project is on the case. We are gathering geographic data in several key states now, and hope to cover most contentious ones over the next year or two. It’s a big job ahead, and now the Supreme Court has given us all the more reason to do it

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/20/after-gill-three-ways-forward/feed/2Kicking the can down the roadhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/18/decisions-and-punts-on-partisan-gerrymandering-cases-developing/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/18/decisions-and-punts-on-partisan-gerrymandering-cases-developing/#commentsMon, 18 Jun 2018 14:33:38 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20897From the opinion (click image to get whole decision):The Supreme Court has opinions on Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone. First, the good news: the Court likes our math! The bad news: they think it answered a First Amendment claim, and they decided this was a Fourteenth Amendment case.

Major points, in short:

They are sending Gill back to Wisconsin for a do-over on grounds that there needs to be a plaintiff in every district. The Court focused on vote dilution, which they say is a Fourteenth Amendment claim. They scold the plaintiffs for not spending much time on the First Amendment claim. Not a win or a loss, but a punt. Read more at SCOTUSblog.

In the Court’s view, this claim has to be decided on a district-by-district basis. They say that alternative maps demonstrating individual-voter harms could help. This is a loss for those of us who think that statewide measures were the way to prove a representational harm.

Kagan has a 4-vote concurrence that points a possible way forward, based on First Amendment principles. It leaves open the possibility of a statewide harm. Noah Feldman analyzes. Kennedy didn’t sign that opinion, either because he didn’t agree or because he’s keeping his powder dry for now.

Benisek, the Maryland decision, also came out today. That’s less interesting – a loss for reformers but basically a wait-and-see ruling, on the basis that Gill is a punt. Not much more to be said for now.

North Carolina (Rucho v. Common Cause) may be argued next fall. It presents different theories. It’s actually a better-done decision, and would make better law than what was presented in Gill.

The next front is state-by-state reform. In places like Michigan and Virginia, state-specific voter initiatives and laws can do what the Supreme Court didn’t do today. So our plans at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project will move ahead!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/18/decisions-and-punts-on-partisan-gerrymandering-cases-developing/feed/6The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is expanding!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/01/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-is-expanding/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/01/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-is-expanding/#commentsSat, 02 Jun 2018 03:20:51 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20863Anyone interested in containing partisan gerrymanders is waiting for several major decisions from the Supreme Court this month. But no matter which way those decisions go, the next stage of reform will be local. For this reason, my team at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project is making plans to expand our research efforts, which bridge mathematics and the law, to individual states.

Here’s what we have planned ahead in our effort to fix a major bug in democracy.

Our Work

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project seeks to bridge the gap between mathematics and the law to achieve fair representation through redistricting reform. This work is nonpartisan. Previously, we developed standards for detecting partisan inequality of opportunity and outcome (see this Stanford Law Review article and this Harvard Law Review Blog post). These standards offer one way to put guardrails on the redistricting process.

Adding A Dose of Federalism

A potentially far stronger route to reform goes through individual states – a federalist approach. Our Project has now expanded to include map-drawing, computational, and legal expertise. This interdisciplinary team aims to give activists and legislators the tools they need to detect offenses and craft bombproof, bipartisan reform.

Our statistics have been used to demonstrate just how unfair a gerrymander can be. Our geospatial analyst has experience in drawing demonstrative maps that have been used by state reformers to identify extreme gerrymanders and neutral alternatives. And working with legal collaborators, we have filed a brief to turn the math into a standard of fairness that can be expressed in terms of law.

The Future

In the future, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project seeks to achieve:

State Reports—Reformers across the country are interested in understanding how statistics and the law apply in unique ways to their own states. We will prepare reports that include demonstration maps, as well as statistical and legal analyses to help good-government groups craft bombproof reform strategies. We will target states such as Michigan and Virginia, where the need is great, and reform efforts are strong or growing.

Improved Communication—Redistricting actors are currently divided into mathematical, activist, and legal spheres. Our interdisciplinary team will bridge this gap. We will show statisticians how to advance reform, activists how to write secure laws, lawyers how to create rigorous arguments.

Precinct Data Hub—Currently, there is no central repository of precinct-level geographic data from across the country available to the public. We plan to collect this data from counties and state governments across the country and provide it to the public in a usable format. Any person or organization, without regard for party or issue interests, will be able access the data to draw new maps and evaluate the fairness of proposed maps in the 2020 cycle.

We’ll say more about our work in the weeks and months ahead. I hope you can support our work to fix bugs in democracy.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/06/01/the-princeton-gerrymandering-project-is-expanding/feed/4This Saturday at Princeton: A bipartisan panel on gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/31/this-saturday-at-princeton-a-bipartisan-panel-on-gerrymandering/
Thu, 31 May 2018 17:10:15 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20856Alumni, welcome back for Reunions!

This Saturday, as part of Princeton’s annual Reunions, Sam will be moderating a bipartisan panel on gerrymandering. Our new initiative, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, uses data analytics and the law to address gerrymandering. We’re working at the federal level (see our last-minute appeal to help the Supreme Court) and the state level, partnering with reform efforts in Michigan and Virginia, as well as setting up a major data hub to help redistricting and voting reform movements. And we’re gearing up for whatever comes out of the Supreme Court later this month.

We hope those around this weekend will come out and join us this Saturday, June 2nd, 8:45am, McCosh Hall 10.

Amanda H. Neely ’03, General Counsel to U.S. Senator Rob Portman and Deputy Chief Counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University.

]]>SCOTUS Tea Leaf Watchhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/23/tea-leaf-watch/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/23/tea-leaf-watch/#commentsWed, 23 May 2018 12:51:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20836The anti-labor Epic Systems decision reminds us that the Supreme Court is fundamentally conservative in its outlook – in the political sense, not a textualist sense. Edith Roberts has the roundup.

Abbott v. Perez is a confused case, as Texas cases usually are. Still, it is just one example of broad hostility on the part of the Court to racial gerrymandering claims. This case tells us that the future of such claims is bleak. Here we are in 2018, and no matter how this case is resolved, much of the Texas map will have made it through four Congressional elections – and maybe all five elections before post-2020 redistricting. Truly it is possible to run out the clock on a racial gerrymander.

The partisan gerrymandering cases seem more likely to tilt in the liberal direction, at least for now. Although we don’t know what will happen in Whitford or in Benisek, the issue is at least alive. To the extent that a racial voting group’s interests align with one party more than another, for now this is a remaining route to reform through court action. For a longer look, I recommend Rick Hasen’s “Party All The Time” article on the relationship between race and party.

Pardon my ongoing obsession with the Supreme Court; I’ll get to the House and Senate when summer comes.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/23/tea-leaf-watch/feed/1The Princeton Election Consortium needs your help!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/09/the-princeton-election-consortium-needs-your-help/
Thu, 10 May 2018 02:26:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20824Here at PEC, we need help for the 2018 season. I want to revamp the site, as well as redesign some of the ways we present information. It’s an effort for the summer, with the goal of being fully automatic by fall. Interested? See this ad, and write to us.

One catch: it would be best if you were nearby, to allow in-person meetings!

Postscript: Obviously, you can do what I did here for other cases. You are welcome to post your results in comments. Better yet, if you want to write a program to do this automatically, that would be quite welcome!

This week, Heather Gerken, election law scholar and Dean of the Yale Law School, visited to give a lecture here at Princeton on federalism as a powerful tool for both conservatives *and* progressives. During question-and-answer, she was asked what she thought would happen in the current partisan gerrymandering cases before the Supreme Court. After getting leave from me to answer (because of this, she is quite literally my lawyer!), she thought things looked uncertain. One of her sources was betting websites. As her unofficial data scientist, I thought I’d do a deeper dive.

I’ve previously used the crowd wisdom of these betting sites to estimate the outcome of the Arizona v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission redistricting case. There, the crowd did well – especially the most accurate punters. After doing the same thing for the current cases, it is possible to see what the smart crowd thinks will happen next month.

First, let’s admit that the crowd as a whole is divided on both Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone. In Gill, AFFIRM upholds the Wisconsin plaintiffs, and in Benisek, REVERSE takes the side of the Maryland plaintiffs; these are the pro-reform outcomes. According to the crowd:

This requires a bit of unpacking. At sites like PredictIt, bettors buy shares in an outcome. There, the share price is effectively an estimate of probability by the crowd. At the other sites, it’s a bit more like a survey of the people who log on to the site. For example, FantasySCOTUS, which is a project of LexPredict and Josh Blackman, is populated by enthusiasts who estimate the outcomes of cases, as well as the likely vote of each of the nine justices. Many of the people who vote are not legal scholars at all – but they do evaluate a wide variety of information, including oral argument.

At face value, all four of the above estimates are close to coin tosses. That would suggest considerable uncertainty.

However, not all members of the crowd are equally wise. It is possible to extract more value by identifying the top experts on FantasySCOTUS, and then seeing what they think. Of the 2016-2017 top ten punters, four are somewhere in the top 20 again this year: Tim Delaune, Bill Corteal, Justin Abbasi, and nbcrcc. This term, these top players have been right about case outcomes an average of 77% of the time. What do they think?

Gill: all four think AFFIRM.

Benisek: one says affirm, one says reverse, and two haven’t voted.

Now let’s look at this year’s top 10 (one of whom is again nbcrcc) who have made predictions. Their track record so far is similar to last year’s best forecasters. Their crowd wisdom is:

Combining the two groups, the aggregated estimate is 11 to 2 for a good outcome in Gill – pretty clear.

Benisek is murkier: 7 for REVERSE, three for AFFIRM, and three abstaining bidders. A bare majority, but not definitive. This reflects the apparent confusion at oral argument, though I think the two cases are likely to be coupled (i.e. if one goes in a plaintiff-favorable direction, the other one should as well). I suppose that is a two-way street.

Speculatively, a win in Gill might lead to one new Constitutional right: for members of a party to have a fair shot at representation at a statewide level. In this scenario, which FantasySCOTUS suggests is likely, statewide measures of gerrymandering would matter quite a bit (see my analysis of these measures at the Harvard Law Review Blog). A win in Benisek might lead to an additional right, the right of residents of a particular district to avoid being targeted for their views. Such a win is less certain at the moment.

I am interested in the electronic market from a practical standpoint. We at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project are forging ahead while this decision brews. No matter which way these cases go, there is much potential action at the state level in the coming year. That brings us back to the topic of Dean Gerken’s talk, which concerned federalism. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has a two-pronged, federalist strategy: (1) helping federal courts establish guardrails on partisan gerrymandering, and (2) working with states to craft individualized, hack-resistant standards. I’ll write more about our efforts another day.

Of course we all have to wait until the Supreme Court rules – but my thoughts about how to allocate effort right now are shaped by what I think is likely to occur.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/05/05/tea-leaves-ii-the-fantasyscotus-verdict/feed/19Tea Leaves on Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/25/tea-leaves-on-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/25/tea-leaves-on-partisan-gerrymandering/#respondWed, 25 Apr 2018 15:37:47 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20706Update: At Election Law Blog, Rick Pildes of NYU points out slightly different tea leaves. In his reading, Kennedy got stuck writing two October opinions because he had to pick up pieces left by a failed Gorsuch opinion.

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a racial gerrymandering case, Abbott v. Perez. That’s a complicated case. For a rundown, see Amy Howe over at SCOTUSBlog. The vote might come down to Anthony Kennedy, the usual swing vote in gerrymandering cases. He is generally unfavorable to such claims. However, the liberals argued that a win by Governor Abbott could open the door to a flood of lawsuits by lowering the bar for an appeal to the Supreme Court (currently there has to be at least an injunction). Whatever the case, it seems likely that the justices will arrange themselves into two wings, with Kennedy’s vote up for grabs, like this vote (replace Scalia with Gorsuch):

But that’s not my topic today. Instead I want to engage in some speculation on the partisan gerrymandering cases. Yesterday, a small clue came from an opinion issued by the Court yesterday in an unrelated case. Bottom line: I think reformers will win in Maryland, and they will win or have more work to do in Wisconsin and North Carolina.

The opinion in question concerns an unrelated case from October, Jesner v. Arab Bank. It was written by Justice Kennedy. Usually, justices are only assigned one opinion for a given month of cases – and Whitford was also an October case. The only justices who haven’t written for that month are Roberts and Gorsuch. Given the rank-ordering of the justices’ preferences, that seems to suggest the following possibilities, in order of descending likelihood:

Roberts writes the opinion, and it’s a 6-3 win for reformers (Whitford) or something more complicated; or a 5-4 win for Wisconsin (Gill).

Kennedy writes a second October-based opinion, with the same possibilities or a 5-4 win for Whitford.

Gorsuch writes the opinion, and it’s a 5-4 win for Gill.

I pause to note that in scenarios #1 and #3, Roberts and Kennedy will vote together. #2 is possible in part because of the speculation (see Rick Pildes’s essay) that Gorsuch couldn’t build a consensus on Jesner, and Kennedy had to pick up the pieces.

Now let us consider the fact that the Court has a second case, Benisek v. Lamone, from Maryland. Surely the Court took a second case because it wants to do something about partisan gerrymandering. That, plus the unlikelihood of assigning such an important opinion to Gorsuch, suggests that at a minimum, Gill won’t win.

But what is the value of adding Benisek? Here are two possibilities:

To avoid the appearance of bias, the Court wanted one gerrymander committed by each party – Maryland by Democrats, Wisconsin by Republicans.

There was something wrong or incomplete with the Wisconsin case’s details, for purposes of the law they want to lay down.

This is not an either/or situation; both could be true. And since Roberts cares about appearances, he could have been the one pushing to take Benisek.

In the Harvard Law Review Blog, I argued that the key difference between the two cases is that Maryland is a single-district gerrymander, whereas Wisconsin is a statewide gerrymander. In Whitford oral argument, Roberts and Kennedy noted this point and linked it to First Amendment-based reasoning (see pages 4-5 of the transcript):

JUSTICE KENNEDY: ….suppose the Court — and you will just have to assume, we won’t know exactly the parameters of it — decided that this is a First Amendment issue, not an equal protection issue. Would that change the calculus so that, if you’re in one part of the state, you have a First Amendment interest in having your party strong or the other party weak?

….

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: …I think the argument is pretty straightforward which you, in your district, have a right of
association and you want to exercise that right of association with other people elsewhere in the state. And if you can’t challenge the
districting throughout the state, then your claim seems to be — there is no way for to you to raise your claim.

To me, this suggests that Kennedy and Roberts are on the verge of finding a new right in the First Amendment: the right for partisans to be represented on a statewide basis. That would be a home run for reformers.

However, there is another possibility: the Court takes a more restrained approach. They could simply find that in Benisek, Maryland Democrats committed a single-district gerrymander. This is an extension of racial gerrymandering doctrine of the past. That would also make new law, since until now, the Court has held that single districts may be drawn for a wide variety of reasons, with the exception of race. The Court would have to add a second exception for excessive partisanship. In this scenario, Whitford gets sent back for a do-over.

In either scenario, Kennedy writes the Benisek opinion for the reformers, Roberts writes the Whitford opinion, and both votes are 6-3. That would mean five votes for the new doctrine, even after Kennedy or a justice from the liberal wing leaves the Court.

Here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, we are divided about what will be in the Whitford opinion. I think Wisconsin Democrats may win, whereas Brian Remlinger thinks the lower court will have to try again, taking into account whatever new doctrine the Court lays down. Other team members have not weighed in yet.

Finally, what about the North Carolina case, Rucho v. League of Women Voters? Rucho resembles Whitford, so they may also need a do-over. Too bad, since the lower court wrote a well-organized opinion. No rest for the weary.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/25/tea-leaves-on-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/0One last gerrymandering case…Abbott v. Perez in Texashttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/23/one-last-gerrymandering-case-abbott-v-perez-in-texas/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/23/one-last-gerrymandering-case-abbott-v-perez-in-texas/#commentsMon, 23 Apr 2018 15:16:44 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20695This week, the Supreme Court hears one last case on gerrymandering for the term. This one’s a racial-gerrymandering case, Abbott v. Perez. The history of the case is long and tortured – see Ian Millhiser’s summary. Also, here’s great coverage from Alexa Ura at the Texas Tribune.

This case is in a separate category than the partisan-gerrymandering cases (Whitford, Benisek, and Rucho), where there is an opportunity to create new guardrails. Instead, Abbott seems more a case study in how a dispute can be slow-walked – in this case since 2011. I agree with Millhiser that the slow-walking is upsetting. But it could arise from caution in the face of complexity (or in the partisan cases, the absence of settled doctrine). So one could justify that aspect of how gerrymandering cases are handled.

Millhiser is quite negative about the Court’s approach to gerrymandering. At the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, let me take a more positive view of where the Court may head in the future. Indeed, I see potential for substantial improvement, by expanding gerrymandering from race into the domain of party.

Expansion into the partisan domain is timely because polarization between the parties has escalated so much starting in the mid-1990s. The erosion of minority voting rights is an area of obvious concern, but even there, the Court’s record in redistricting is not all bad – see the Cooper v. Harris decision in North Carolina.

How can racial and partisan gerrymandering be combined? From the standpoint of best forensic practices, a suitable distinction might be between how to address cases involving (a) a very outnumbered minority (e.g. North Carolina African-Americans, or Maryland Republicans) or (b) two groups at near parity (e.g. statewide partisans in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or North Carolina). These require different approaches.

I wrote about the possibilities in the Harvard Law Review Blog and in our working paper. Our main focus in the piece was separating the two concepts of unequal opportunity and unequal outcomes. Under either concept, it is important to understand that the concept (whether opportunity or outcome) should be examined in multiple ways. Racial/partisan minorities require examination of single districts, whereas when the two parties are at near-parity, a statewide approach is necessary. If the Supreme Court adopts this logic, it will define a new right: the right of a whole party to be represented. That would be huge!

In the past, I have written about detailed math. But I think the math is beside the point. Indeed, a big intellectual step for the court will be to see that the many formulas all fit under a few principles. To read more, see our SSRN working paper.

At the Harvard Law Review Blog, I lay out a framework for organizing the many tests for partisan gerrymandering. The framework may be useful for establishing a logical and manageable standard to define the offense. Read “An Antidote To Gobbledygook“!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/11/at-the-harvard-law-review-blog/feed/1An Antidote for Gobbledygook: Organizing The Judge’s Partisan-Gerrymandering Toolkithttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/07/gobbledygook-101-organizing-the-judges-toolkit/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/04/07/gobbledygook-101-organizing-the-judges-toolkit/#commentsSat, 07 Apr 2018 07:04:34 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20680The Supreme Court appears to be at loggerheads in its search for a single standard for partisan gerrymandering. Here, Sam Wang and Brian Remlinger collect the many statistical standards into a single toolkit. Basically, all the tests fit into two categories: inequality of opportunity and durable outcomes. Read our working draft, which we have uploaded as an SSRN preprint here.

Here’s the law side of our argument, in a nutshell:

We propose that mathematical tests fall into two categories: tests of unequal opportunity and tests of durable outcome. These tests draw upon ideas borrowed from racial discrimination law, while extending that doctrine in directions that are unique to the category of partisanship.

Opportunity is easily defined and corresponds to a core principle of democracy: it should be possible to vote out a candidate or incumbent. While it is true that voters have clustered into enclaves that sometimes make an incumbent or party safe, it is equally the case that redistricters can manipulate lines to amplify the effects of that natural clustering. Just as members of a racial group can have the representational rights impaired through gerrymandering, so it is with partisans.

Test of unequal opportunity are easily conceptualized as an extension of racial discrimination. Where partisans comprise a small fraction of the population, the appropriate procedure is to examine individual districts. Where partisans comprise close to half the voters of a state, a statewide evaluation is necessary.

However, party is a more mutable characteristic than race. Therefore one may ask whether a partisan advantage is durable. Our second standard, testing for inequality of outcome, addresses this problem by probing whether a particular arrangement is likely to be robust to likely changes within a redistricting cycle. This can be gauged not just by waiting for multiple elections to pass (which would vitiate the remedy) but by gauging the partisan effects of a map by examining likely outcomes under a variety of conditions. This is well within the reach of modern expert witnesses.

So, oral arguments in Benisek just ended. Here’s the transcript! A round-up of the case is at SCOTUSblog. . Audio will soon be available here.

Bloomberg reports that multiple justices questioned whether a First Amendment-based approach of looking at single districts (as is done for racial gerrymandering) is the right approach to regulate the Maryland gerrymander. To remind everyone…it is possible to analyze Maryland on a statewide basis to identify a statistical anomaly. See my Election Law Journal analysis here. Rick Hasen posts a pessimistic take here. He thinks there’s no consensus about how to define a partisan gerrymander, and he thinks this is a problem.

However, here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project we see a way forward. As PGP’s Will Adler points out, in both Whitford and Benisek oral arguments, Justice Kennedy asked the same question: whether it would be permissible for a state law to mandate that partisanship be a “predominant consideration.” This seems to be a starting point. After that, sure, there’s a question of how to set a standard. In my view it would involve establishing the idea that a map is extreme. As we’ve written before, significance testing provides a path forward: t-test, mean-median difference, Monte Carlo, and map-drawing. They’re all related ideas, and they comprise a valuable toolbox for the judge.

PGP’s own Brian Remlinger was in the room for oral argument. He reports:

That was something. The liberals tore into the Republican plaintiff for not having a clear test, but Roberts tore into the Democrats for discriminating against the Republican voters, so his vote may be in play. He seems interested in doing something. Overall, I am more optimistic that it’s not game over when Kennedy retires.

I think whatever the Court does will include clear guidance on how to distinguish an unacceptable gerrymander from normal redistricting. Whitford wasn’t mentioned too much, so I didn’t get a sense of how the specific standard would be structured, except it will likely have some effects prong involving showing that a map substantially changes the electoral results.

Every justice seemed to think there’s no way that the gerrymander could be cured before November, which raises procedural issues for reversing the injunction. The Court might uphold the denial of the injunction, on the grounds that there’s no irreparable harm, but then establish a standard that would govern the Maryland trial as it goes forward.

Specific justices: The liberals won’t do anything to harm the anti-gerrymandering cause. Alito was dismissive and a vote against. Gorsuch didn’t say much.

In summary, Roberts’s vote might be in play! But we still don’t know what a standard would look like.

As the 2020 redistricting looms, the PGP is taking the fight to the states, where we will explore possibilities for ballot- and litigation-based reform. The legal analyst will be responsible for digging into the legal, political, and statistical issues surrounding redistricting in the states we target. She/he will research the regulations governing redistricting, the ways in which the process played out in the last several redistricting cycles, the background politics, and current reform efforts.

Additionally, the legal analyst will keep abreast of redistricting news and scholarship, both legal and statistical. The political, legal, and academic landscape changes rapidly, and upcoming Supreme Court decisions are likely to transform the field. A strong understanding of the field is essential to informing the PGP’s strategic choices and for collaborating with other members of the PGP on computational and statistical projects.

Finally, the legal analyst will co-author academic and popular press articles about PGP methods. She/he will also handle press inquiries and external communications.

The ideal candidate for this job is a strong writer with basic knowledge of courts and the law. She/he will also be familiar and comfortable with discussing both legal and mathematical/statistical issues with academic and lay audiences. This position is suitable for someone between college and graduate or professional school. More experienced applicants are also welcome. In all cases, she/he must be available full-time.

Soon there will be an official job posting, at which time the goals and requirements may be modified slightly. In advance of that, I invite interested people to send me an email at sswang@princeton.edu and cc Brian Remlinger (brem@princeton.edu) to describe qualifications and availability.

]]>Politics and Polls: Can Trump Actually Shut Down the Mueller Investigation?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/22/politics-and-polls-can-trump-actually-shut-down-the-mueller-investigation/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/22/politics-and-polls-can-trump-actually-shut-down-the-mueller-investigation/#commentsThu, 22 Mar 2018 20:45:48 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20629As Trump hostility to Mueller’s investigation heats up, can he actually shut it down? On Politics And Polls, I talk to Fordham Law professor and Trump-investigation expert Jed Shugerman about fail-safes that Mueller may have put in place, and legal theories of the case. Listen to the new Politics & Polls!

Oh, and in case you missed them, Julian and I have had some awesome recent episodes: one with the Drive-By Truckers, one with political writer E.J. Dionne, and one with historian Linda Gordon on the resurgence of the KKK in the 1920’s, and what it means for the present day. Quite a range of guests – we’re very pleased with the cool people we have had on!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/22/politics-and-polls-can-trump-actually-shut-down-the-mueller-investigation/feed/11Game over in Pennsylvania!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/19/game-over-in-pennsylvania/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/19/game-over-in-pennsylvania/#commentsMon, 19 Mar 2018 19:49:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20622Today came two rulings. First, a three-judge court turned down a challenge to the redrawn Pennyslvania Congressional map. Then, a few hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court did the same.

These were long-shot cases, since they would have involved finding that the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Constitution was in conflict with the United States Constitution, for example if there were an affirmative right to gerrymander in the latter. It would have been tortured logic, and it appears that there were not enough votes on the Supreme Court to go there. This outcome is logically unsurprising…but still a relief.

There was talk about finding a reason to overturn the state court’s decision using Article I, which states that the legislature has the power to set the manner of elections. However, this would go against considerable court precedent. That might fly when the Presidency is at stake (i.e. Bush v. Gore), but to swing half a dozen Congressional seats? As of 2018, no.

So…game over for partisan gerrymandering in Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation! At least for 2018, and probably 2020. After that…we start over again with the next Census and redistricting.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/19/game-over-in-pennsylvania/feed/15Pennsylvania’s (current) 18th CD: The top of the leveehttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/13/learning-from-pennsylvanias-current-18th-congressional-district-special/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/13/learning-from-pennsylvanias-current-18th-congressional-district-special/#commentsWed, 14 Mar 2018 01:08:10 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20612Whoever wins today’s special election to fill the open Congressional seat in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, it wasn’t supposed to be close. It’s part of a statewide partisan gerrymander, a district that a generic Republican ought to win by about 20 points. In November 2016, Donald Trump got 58% to Hillary Clinton’s 39%. The closeness of the race suggests there’s a massive wave of discontent with the Republicans.

If Conor Lamb (D) wins, that doesn’t mean that gerrymanders don’t matter. Instead, it means that even the highest levee can be breached if the wave is high enough. This year’s potential Democratic wave is evidently very high indeed. If this race is near-tied in a district that Donald Trump carried by 19 points in 2016, that is a massive swing – consistent with other special elections in 2018, which have swung by a median of 23 points toward Democrats.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/03/13/learning-from-pennsylvanias-current-18th-congressional-district-special/feed/15Climate life eventshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/25/climate-life-events/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/25/climate-life-events/#commentsMon, 26 Feb 2018 02:39:24 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20607This graph was done using a simple but outstanding app to make climate change personal. [GitHub]
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/25/climate-life-events/feed/7Introducing the new Pennsylvania Congressional maphttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/19/introducing-the-new-pennsylvania-congressional-map/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/19/introducing-the-new-pennsylvania-congressional-map/#commentsMon, 19 Feb 2018 20:20:22 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20574Here’s the new Congressional map for Pennsylvania, drawn by advisor to the court Nate Persily. I think it’s a landmark contribution to the understanding of partisan fairness, in one of the most politically heterogeneous states in the Union – “Pennsatucky.”

For anyone who’s drawn such maps, this particular one is a pleasure to look at. It does a great job at compliance. It splits 13 counties, less than any plan offered to the court. The only plan that splits fewer counties or municipalities is the “compact D gerrymander” that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project posted over the weekend. So in terms of basic compliance, it wins.

But more importantly, this map undoes the effects of population clustering. As we showed over the weekend, it is just possible within the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rules to allow a plan that reaches partisan balance, i.e. a 9 D, 9 R outcome for a 50-50 statewide vote. However, those rules bias the range of possibilities in favor of Republicans, so that a Republican gerrymander – one of the proposals on the table – was also a possibility.

It appears as if the advisor was either trying to achieve partisan balance or build competitive races (as opposed to, say, picking a plan that was in the middle of the range of possible maps). His map – and the one we gave over the weekend – show that even under the constraint of compactness and not splitting political jurisdictions, it is still possible to build a map that treats both parties approximately equally. Notably, he did so while keeping most population centers together. This map passes all three of our tests of partisan asymmetry.

This outcome fits with an unspoken principle in the court’s decision of partisan symmetry: if the two sides swapped vote totals, then their seat totals should be swapped as well. This fundamental principle of fairness underlies our proposed standards for detecting gerrymandering, as described in our amicus brief in the Whitford case.

It is commonly claimed that partisan bias arises naturally from the way that voters distribute themselves. Certainly such a bias could be visible if one drew thousands (or millions) of maps at random. But districting is not a random process. It is done by human beings, and reflects real-life political and social considerations. In that respect, we shouldn’t care about millions of maps; we should only care about one map, the one that is drawn. Persily has shown that it is possible to maintain all the old principles of geographic contiguity, and still create an overall map that does not give either party an undue advantage. In my view, this is a big deal because it shows that the ideal of partisan symmetry can be a primary criterion for drawing a map.

It seems clear that the Pennsylvania GOP made a serious tactical error. The governor and Democratic legislators had offered a plan that would have retained some GOP advantage. The new plan erases that advantage entirely. In our analysis, based on the 2016 vote the new map produces 5 Democratic districts, 7 Republican districts, and 6 tossup districts. The maximum likely performance by Democrats in 2018 would be 11 seats, a gain of 6 seats over their current representation. That gain would be one-fourth of the 24 seats they need to win control of the House of Representatives. Of course, some of those gains could also go away in a later year that was good for Republicans. That’s the point of electoral competition.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/19/introducing-the-new-pennsylvania-congressional-map/feed/28Pennsylvania partisanship, part II: Democrats in chainshttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/17/pa-dem-map/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/17/pa-dem-map/#commentsSat, 17 Feb 2018 13:02:53 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20485The following analysis is a team effort by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. John O’Neill drew maps which he, Brian Remlinger, Will Adler, and Madeleine Parker analyzed. For other people’s plans, we cited the work of Brian Amos.

In a previous post, we evaluated the Pennsylvania GOP leaders’ proposal for redrawing the congressional map and found strong signs of partisanship. We got curious: under the limits set by the state Supreme Court, what is the maximum advantage in the other direction, favoring Democrats?

We did this in order to put all the proposals into context. If we know the extreme limit on how favorably a map could treat Democrats while following the Court’s directives, then we can evaluate the partisanship of the many Democratic proposals.

We find that the Court’s simple rules (compactness, equal population, and minimization of county/municipality splitting) may still allow Republicans to commit mischief, but they effectively limit Democratic opportunities to gerrymander. Interestingly, Democratic players didn’t go nearly as far as they could have, but instead drew plans that were at the middle of the range of possibilities.

Here’s a map that is impressively compact:
It is the most Democrat-favoring map we could draw under the court’s criteria. On average, it would elect 9 Democrats, 9 Republicans for an equally split statewide vote (using 2012/2016 presidential vote data), with 7 safe seats for each party and 4 tossup seats where the expected margin between parties would be 10 points or less. Democrats can get to 11 seats if they win all the tossups. That’s still 1-2 seats less lopsided than the Republican proposal in the other direction – and requires a wave election.

As far as literal compliance with “floor criteria” goes, this map splits 12 counties, 14 municipalities, and 11 precincts, equal to or fewer than all of the plans we examined. It also performs as well as or better than the other proposed maps on compactness metrics. There could well be a better map out there by these criteria, but we haven’t seen it.

This table contains an analysis of the map above (“Princeton D compact”) and other maps. Click to enlarge:

Democrats gain the biggest advantage by splitting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. This is the converse of what we saw in the Republican plan, which packed those cities tightly while splitting other communities such as Reading, Montgomery County, and greater Harrisburg.

It’s possible to squeeze out a little more performance by being less attentive to the compactness metrics. The following map (“Princeton D extreme” in the table above) still makes fewer splits than all the submitted plans. Compared with the top map, it converts one safe Republican seat to a toss-up. It’s still a 9-9 map, but its ceiling performance is 12 Democrats, 6 Republicans.
Assuming that the Republican legislative leaders’ proposed map of February 9 was as favorable to their party as possible, this means that under any nominally Court-compliant map, Republicans will always win at least 6 seats and Democrats will always win at least 6 seats. The remaining 6 seats — a full one-third of them — are limited not by geography, but by the whims of redistricters.

Interestingly, none of the remedial plans submitted to the Court, even those submitted by Democratic politicians, sought to maximize Democratic seats. All submitted plans had between 6 and 8 Democratic seats, with most plans settling on 7 Democratic seats. Basically, everybody but the Republicans played it down the middle.

Why didn’t Democrats go for broke? Maybe they think toss-up seats are flippable in 2018. Maybe they wanted to protect their five incumbents. Maybe they prioritized “softer” criteria like maintaining certain political or economic communities. Or maybe they are simply good-faith actors. Whether the Court picks one of their plans or draws its own, the outcome is highly likely to be more fair than the existing plan.

One lesson here is that the median neutrally-drawn map appears to be about tilted two seats toward the Republicans. This cycle, partisan gerrymandering added two seats on top of that.

Back to our maps…to be clear, we don’t believe that our maps are good simply because they perform well on the metrics. Looking at our map one way, it’s the extreme endpoint of a range of possibilities. Looking at it another way, it shows that it’s possible to attain representational equity even in a state as heterogeneous as Pennsylvania.

Whichever way you look at it, we have shown that the simple rules and traditional redistricting criteria used here by the Court can only do so much to constrain partisan actors. The court’s floor criteria of compactness and no splitting can be useful to prevent the flagrant geographic offenses we saw on both sides of the aisle nationwide in 2011. However, a truly fair process can only result from a nonpartisan process that examines the many tradeoffs in redistricting.

The fine print:

We used 2016 2-way presidential vote to categorize districts as Democratic or Republican. 2016 was probably the high-water mark for Republicans in Pennsylvania, so our map (and the other maps) may be slightly more favorable to Democrats than the data suggests. We did not examine incumbency, nor did we attempt to keep communities together beyond counties or municipalities. The plans above were drawn by John O’Neill, an expert with real life redistricting experience. We can’t rule out that there is some plan much more advantageous to Democrats than what he drew, though we suspect not. A shapefile of our map is available here, and summary statistics of our plan, as well as some others, are here.

We examined the following maps, which are available at the PA Supreme Court website. The analysis here taken from Brian Amos on Twitter, unless otherwise noted. All analysis uses 2016 presidential results:

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/17/pa-dem-map/feed/4Happy Valentine’s Day!http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/14/happy-valentines-day/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/14/happy-valentines-day/#respondWed, 14 Feb 2018 18:05:13 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20476From the crew at Voters Not Politicians in Michigan, we have this awesomely dorky yet sweet sentiment: Be My Valid-Line!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/14/happy-valentines-day/feed/0When simple rules aren’t enoughhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/13/when-simple-rules-arent-enough/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/13/when-simple-rules-arent-enough/#commentsTue, 13 Feb 2018 23:36:25 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20421As the old political-science saying goes, “all redistricting is gerrymandering.” Inevitably, choices and tradeoffs have to be made. When it comes to representation, the resulting map can end up balanced – unless partisan advantage is made the primary criterion.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court set down clear “floor criteria” for what was absolutely required in the revised map. They said that counties, cities, and wards should not be divided, except to achieve equal population as required by federal law, and to comply with the Voting Rights Act. However, they also said (see page 124 of the decision):

We recognize…that there exists the possibility that advances in map drawing technology and analytical software can potentially allow mapmakers, in the future, to engineer congressional districting maps, which, although minimally comporting with these neutral “floor” criteria, nevertheless operate to unfairly dilute the power of a particular group’s vote for a congressional representative.

Although compliant with floor criteria, a close look at the Pennsylvania GOP legislative leaders’ proposed map reveals some of the choices they made. All it takes is an overlay of population density. Here are some examples.

Here, in northeast Pennsylvania, packing Wilkes-Barre and Scranton together in the 17th district was a clear partisan choice to benefit Republicans, since they had to split Luzerne County to do that. They could have just as easily moved rural voters out of the 11th district instead of the citizens of Wilkes-Barre. In this example, the 17th district is packed with Democratic voters and the 11th district is turned Republican.

Legislators also proposed to split the city of Reading down the middle. The east half of Reading is clustered with part of Montgomery County, which is carved up like the Egyptian sun god Osiris. Certainly, county splits have to be put someplace in order to generate districts of equal population – but the question is where.

Harrisburg is on a county line, and it’s cracked to benefit Republicans, again keeping some urban dwellers out of the 11th district. In this case, though, it was done using a county boundary rather than using an arbitrary line. Similar strategic choices were made elsewhere in the state.

The net outcome is less extreme than the current map, but still clearly advantageous for one side – 12-13 Republicans, 5-6 Democrats for a 50-50 statewide vote. It is no surprise that Governor Wolf rejected this plan. Now the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has the task of drawing the final map.

To me, a major lesson here is that rules to keep counties and cities together are a good start – but they’re not enough by themselves. Coming up with a balanced plan requires give-and-take between multiple interests – in short, a process in which many voices are heard.

Thanks to Brian Remlinger and Will Adler for analysis and map-drawing.

Mathematicians have been working hard to create ways to measure #Gerrymandering. 2017 was a big year on this: accumulating evidence showed PA most gerrymandered of all by two measures, among five worst by any measure. We all lose our voice when our votes don't count. pic.twitter.com/5fgCxTc00r

Today, Philly.com highlights multiple measures of partisan gerrymandering, including several developed here at Princeton.

Now, a major disclaimer: I didn’t think of these, exactly. Several tests (mean-median difference, and lopsided-wins) are over a hundred years old. Another (simulated elections) relies on an equally-old technique, Monte Carlo simulations. These tests are so old that they have whiskers.

There’s one lesson, though: there isn’t just one way to evaluate a gerrymander. Think of these as tools that capture different aspects of partisan asymmetry. For example, Monte Carlo simulations actually account for some of the clustering effect that comes from Republicans gravitating toward rural areas and Democrats gravitating toward population centers.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/13/a-statistical-toolbox-reveals-the-extremity-of-pennsylvania/feed/2Three clues that today’s proposed Pennsylvania map is still a gerrymanderhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/10/three-clues-that-todays-proposed-pennsylvania-map-is-still-a-gerrymander/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/10/three-clues-that-todays-proposed-pennsylvania-map-is-still-a-gerrymander/#commentsSat, 10 Feb 2018 21:38:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20381An image of the Pennsylvania legislature’s proposed Congressional map has been released. It appears to be nominally in compliance with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order, since it splits fewer counties than the current map. However, as we have seen in North Carolina, a prettier map can still conceal ill intent.

Despite the low resolution, enough information is available to conclude that this is still a partisan gerrymander. Of course one can do a detailed partisan calculation, and Dave Wasserman thinks that it’s still 12 R, 6 D, and Nate Cohn thinks it’s 13 R, 5 D. It is absolutely central to remember that even under compactness-based rules, a wide range of partisan outcomes is possible – and this plan is extreme.

Even without making such seat-based calculations, three clues indicating a gerrymander are apparent:

1) Packing and cracking. A display of population density reveals that some districts enclose high-density areas (Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, and Philadelphia), while other lines split densely-populated communities down the middle (see the Scranton, Harrisburg, and Reading areas). Because Democrats tend to be abundant in high-density areas, this is a sign of how they were packed and cracked.

2) Majority-minority districts. According to news reports, Pennsylvania Republican legislators are touting the fact that this map has two districts (PA-1 and PA-2) that are majority-black, thus complying with the Voting Rights Act. However, because whites split between Republicans and Democrats, it’s not necessary to pack that many blacks into a district in order to give them a shot at electing someone. These days, it’s only necessary to create an “ability-to-elect” district with, say, 30-40% black voters. That generates a district that is safe for blacks (and thus Democrats) without wasting too many votes – similar to the safe districts that Republicans draw for themselves. Such symmetry would pass our lopsided-wins test, and treats the two parties equally.

3) The process was skewed. Democratic legislators were frozen out of the process. If the intent was to strike a bipartisan balance, that would not have occurred. Single-party control does not favor balanced outcomes.

Based on these three bits of evidence, it appears that Republicans are not dealing in good faith with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/10/three-clues-that-todays-proposed-pennsylvania-map-is-still-a-gerrymander/feed/6Partisan gerrymandering, the origin storyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/06/partisan-gerrymandering-the-origin-story/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/06/partisan-gerrymandering-the-origin-story/#commentsTue, 06 Feb 2018 12:31:07 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20368Where did this decade’s festival of partisan gerrymandering come from? Dave Daley dives into a trove of documents by Thomas Hofeller and other architects of the grand plan to make hundreds of Congressional and legislative seats uncompetitive after the 2010 Census.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/06/partisan-gerrymandering-the-origin-story/feed/5Justice Alito draws the linehttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/05/justice-alito-draws-the-line/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/05/justice-alito-draws-the-line/#commentsTue, 06 Feb 2018 04:11:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20354Today, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito denied Republican legislators’ request for a stay of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s redistricting decision. That decision overturned the state’s partisan gerrymander, and remains in place. Therefore the drawing of new maps will go forward.

Here’s a quick rundown of what the decision does – and doesn’t – mean.

1. Justice Alito hasn’t had a change of heart. As election law nerds are all aware, Justice Alito is highly disinclined to find a right to fair districting in the U.S. Constitution. Some of that is logically driven: most proposed standards have a certain intellectual flabbiness to them. In addition, he appears to see it as legitimate for a legislature to maintain its own power through creative redistricting. So why did he deny the stay?

Basically, logic dictated that he do so. The Pennsylvania court’s decision was grounded in the Pennsylvania Constitution, which has federal constitution-like guarantees of freedom of speech (U.S. const. Am. 1) and equal protection (U.S. const. Am. 14). Unless the state court’s ruling explicitly violated the federal constitution, there was no logical route to overturning it. And there are very few votes on the Supreme Court for the idea that the U.S. constitution guarantees the right to gerrymander. Certainly not five votes, which would have been required for a stay.

2. Democrats are likely to gain at least four seats in Pennsylvania this November. A partisan gerrymander typically steals 20-25% of the seats compared with neutral districting. Republican legislators managed to waste their own time with their request for a stay, so they may not be able to draft a plan in time. That would suggest the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s special master, Stanford election law professor Nathaniel Persily, will end up drawing the lines. A neutral plan will move at least 3-4 districts toward the Democrats – and in what may well be a wave year, maybe even more will flip.

3. Wisconsin, Maryland, and North Carolina are still up in the air. Because the federal cases turn on different constitutional questions, still unresolved are Wisconsin (Gill v. Whitford), Maryland (Benisek v. Lamone), and North Carolina (Common Cause v. Rucho). Decisions are highly unlikely to come any earlier than May. The reason is that oral arguments in Benisek are set for March. Because the Benisek parties have already filed briefs, it would be considered dirty pool to stick them with a decision in Gill before then. So we wait.

The most likely outcome at this point is that two partisan gerrymanders will be overturned, a Republican one in Wisconsin and a Democratic one in Maryland. Because nearly all partisan gerrymanders in the U.S. are committed by Republicans, leveling of the playing field produces a net gain for Democrats relative to the status quo. However, many of these maps are unlikely to be redrawn until after the November election. Voters will get justice…but not right away.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/02/05/justice-alito-draws-the-line/feed/13Pennsylvania Congressional gerrymander overturned – and it seems likely to stickhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/22/pennsylvania-congressional-gerrymander-overturned-and-its-likely-to-stick/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/22/pennsylvania-congressional-gerrymander-overturned-and-its-likely-to-stick/#commentsMon, 22 Jan 2018 19:51:06 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20320Update, February 5th: Justice Alito denied the Pennsylvania GOP legislators’ motion for a stay. He did so without referring the matter to the full Supreme Court. Justice Alito is one of the three most conservative members of the court, and a near-guaranteed vote against restrictions on partisan gerrymandering…based on the U.S. Constitution. I would call his ruling today a clear signal of what he thought of this desperate Hail Mary pass.

This doesn’t have any bearing on the federal cases in Wisconsin, Maryland, or North Carolina. But it does mean that Pennsylvania will have new Congressional maps within 1-2 weeks.

Update, January 26th: The Commonwealth Court has announced the details of the redistricting, including which definitions of compactness to use. They’ve also retained veteran redistricter Nathaniel Persily in case the legislative process does not produce an acceptable map.

Just in – Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court has overturned that state’s Congressional map as a partisan gerrymander. Maps are ordered to be redrawn there in time for this year’s November election (and the primary in May).

The order was 5-2, with the court’s two Republican appointees in the minority. However, even they were soft no’s. One of them, Chief Justice Saylor, wants to wait to see how Gill v. Whitford, the federal Wisconsin case, turns out. The other, Justice Mundy, says it is not clear which provision of the Commonwealth Constitution applies here. A third justice, Democrat-appointed Justice Baer, raised concerns that subsequent litigation will compress this year’s election calendar too much.

Of particular note, the court order says to redistrict by compactness, equal population, and preserving towns/counties/cities. However, no reference to communities of interest, which is probably good because it closes a loophole that partisans would otherwise try to exploit.

This decision is huge because it does not depend on the U.S. Constitution. Instead, it is based on the Commonwealth Constitution of Pennsylvania, which has First/Fourteenth-Amendment-like protections – but is not subject to appeal to the Supreme Court. I think intervention by the Supreme Court would occur only if the decision expressly contradicted federal law. Even if Gill were to win over Whitford in the Wisconsin case, a decision there would probably still not find a right to gerrymander in the U.S. Constitution. That said, Rick Hasen has described a possible Hail Mary strategy for the state of Pennsylvania. None of this will stop the initial appeals and litigation…but it sure seems like Pennsylvania just took a big step toward fairer districting for this cycle (2018 and 2020). Considering that Pennsylvania is the site of the (in)famous Vieth v. Jubelirer decision, it would be poetic justice.

What does this mean for this year? According to the order, the special election in the 18th Congressional District should proceed as planned, in March. That makes sense, since otherwise, dependent on the new boundaries, some Pennsylvanians would have two members of Congress and others would have none. After that, once the map is redrawn, political conditions in 2018 are likely to resemble 2012 for Democrats, or better. Neutral districting then would have led to 8-9 D seats. The actual result was 13 R, 5 D (and has been since then). Therefore today’s decision, implemented via neutral redistricting principles, might reasonably mean a 3 or 4-seat gain for Democrats.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/22/pennsylvania-congressional-gerrymander-overturned-and-its-likely-to-stick/feed/25Gobbledygook 101: Buttercup Petals and Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/17/gobbledygook-101-buttercup-petals-and-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/17/gobbledygook-101-buttercup-petals-and-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsWed, 17 Jan 2018 14:34:36 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20313What do all these phenomena have in common with partisan gerrymandering?Tools developed over a century ago can help us detect and limit partisan gerrymandering today. Maps and geometry by themselves won’t do the job. Find out why in our new Vox explainer.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/17/gobbledygook-101-buttercup-petals-and-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/1Politics & Polls #73: What does the North Carolina gerrymandering decision mean?http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/11/politics-polls-73-what-does-the-north-carolina-gerrymandering-decision-mean/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/11/politics-polls-73-what-does-the-north-carolina-gerrymandering-decision-mean/#commentsThu, 11 Jan 2018 20:54:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20311Our podcast’s now available on Spotify!

Today, Julian Zelizer and I discussed the North Carolina court decision. What does it mean for reform ahead? Listen to the new Politics & Polls.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/11/politics-polls-73-what-does-the-north-carolina-gerrymandering-decision-mean/feed/2CNN tonight, 11pm Eastern, on partisan gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/10/cnn-tonight-11pm-eastern-on-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/10/cnn-tonight-11pm-eastern-on-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsWed, 10 Jan 2018 21:29:22 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20302I’ll appear in the 11 o’clock hour to talk about yesterday’s North Carolina partisan gerrymandering decision. I’ll be on with Don Lemon. He’ll also have the Reverend William Barber of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina. Tune in!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/10/cnn-tonight-11pm-eastern-on-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/3North Carolina Congressional map struck down as a partisan gerrymanderhttp://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/09/north-carolina-congressional-map-struck-down-as-a-partisan-gerrymander/
http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/09/north-carolina-congressional-map-struck-down-as-a-partisan-gerrymander/#commentsTue, 09 Jan 2018 22:33:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20295News flash – in League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho (and Common Cause v. Rucho), a federal court has found the Congressional district map to be an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Decision here.

Recall that this is a map that was first found to be a racial gerrymander, and then was re-litigated as a partisan gerrymander. This is an important development – it’s the first time that any federal court has ever struck down a statewide districting plan on partisan grounds.

See the comment thread for my thoughts on what’s ahead. Also, as usual, many of my readers have excellent insights.

It’s too early to say who is in the running for the Democratic Party nomination for the Presidency. However, the shape of the playing field is starting to emerge. Courtesy of Josh Putnam at Frontloading HQ, here’s a rundown (in three parts) over recent rules changes. My insta-reaction:

Primaries versus caucuses: a wash. The balance of primaries and caucuses won’t change much. This means that overall, the nomination process may remain little-d democratic, in the sense of mostly favoring whoever gets more votes – as was the case in 2016.

Superdelegates slightly less super. The third FHQ post goes into depth on a change in the number and status of “superdelegates,” i.e. delegates with latitude to vote for whomever they want. In my view this issue was always a bit overblown – it was a vestige of the influence of party officials (on either side) over the nomination process. There’s been a long decline in the strength of party officials over the last few decades. This is why the rise of Trump was undetected by so many (though see my post in early 2016). The proposed change continues that trend. However, Putnam has some doubts about how easy it will be to implement.

As we saw in 2016, an outsider won the nomination on one side (Trump) and had a real shot on the other side (Sanders). There is no doubt that these outside forces have shaped the two parties. It appears that on the Democratic side, such change will be ever-so-slightly easier now.

A recruitment move…or a back door for mischief? One proposed change pops out – encouraging states to allow same-day party-switching. Wherever this is implemented, this means that independents – and Republicans – could vote in the Democratic primary. The intention appears to be to recruit more Democrats. However, one could imagine unintended consequences.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2018/01/03/democratic-party-nominating-rules-for-2020/feed/11Roy Moore as an ultimate test of the power of partisan loyaltyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/12/12/roy-moore-and-donald-trump-are-diagnostics-for-todays-gop/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/12/12/roy-moore-and-donald-trump-are-diagnostics-for-todays-gop/#commentsWed, 13 Dec 2017 02:11:00 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20247Today’s Alabama special election to replace Senator Luther Strange (R) is of obvious interest for two reasons. First and foremost, since the Senate is now 52 R, 48 D/I. After tonight, it will either stay the same, or become 51 R, 49 D/I. This would adversely affect the legislative ability of an already-dysfunctional Republican Congress.

Second is the emotionally wrenching nature of the race. The Republican candidate, Roy Moore, has attained worldwide fame…for bad reasons. A judge who has been ejected from office for violating his oath, he is also credibly accused of acting on his sexual attraction to teenage girls, and of molesting a 14-year-old (that’s 8th grade). He runs against Democrat Doug Jones, a rock-ribbed Alabaman who is known for prosecuting KKK members who killed little girls in a bombing. Despite all this, Moore has been slightly favored to win. No matter who wins, the closeness of this race tells us something useful about the current national landscape.

Basically, partisanship overrides other factors in the current national political environment. As I’ve written before, voters these days don’t change their minds during a campaign, and they vote straight party ticket. We can use Roy Moore – and before him, Donald Trump – to measure the loyalty of Republican voters to their party. Think of these two specimens as useful extreme cases, which tell us just how entrenched voters have become.

Consider 2016. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points, despite the fact that House Republican candidates beat Democratic candidates by an average of 1.1 percentage point. That 3-point difference demonstrates just how few voters were put off by the most disruptive Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater. If that difference arose from GOP voters switching to minor-party candidates, it means that as many as 3% of voters were Republicans who couldn’t vote for Trump. Since Republicans were about 48% of the popular vote, that means about 6% of otherwise-Republicans nationally couldn’t vote for Trump – and 94% stuck with him. Even if we only count the approximately 38% of survey respondents who approve of his performance, that means 79% of Republican voters currently support him.

Now let us turn to Alabama, a deep-red state. In three statewide races in which no sexual predator was representing the Republican party, we have the following results:

The median of those three races is R+22%. The last six polls for today’s race give a median of Moore +6%. That’s a swing of 16 points, which would be consistent with 8% of Alabama voters being turned off by a child molester and switching to the Democrat. (It could also be more, if the difference comes from depressed GOP enthusiasm.) If 61% of Alabama voters are Republican-preferring, it means that only 13% of Alabama Republicans will take a Democrat over a molester – and 87% of them are still okay with Moore. Even if Jones pulls out a win, this percentage only drops to around 82% of Republicans.

Obviously, turnout affects these calculations. For example, if Jones wins by getting higher turnout in the African-American community, that would suggest that GOP voters are loyal, but too demoralized to vote. That would be a surprise in a special election, and worth watching out for.

As Nancy Pelosi has said, Donald Trump’s success proves that to Republican voters, “any mammal will do.” Counting Roy Moore as a mammal, today’s election fits with that idea.

Update, Wednesday morning 8:00AM: Jones did win, by 2 percentage points. Which means we can quantify the Alabama swing as 24% toward Democrats. It should be noted that over 15% of this swing occurred before the Washington Post bombshell. A 15-point swing is consistent with other special elections this year. Yesterday’s election could only be made possible by Trump’s deep unpopularity.

Exit polls showed that 91% of Republicans voted for Moore. The discrepancy between that and 82% suggests that turnout played a major role – see my Twitter feed for analytics from others quantifying this.

This is quite novel. We are still waiting for the decision in Gill v. Whitford, this year’s big partisan-gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court. However, it turns out it’s just the first case. Now there’s a second one: Benisek v. Lamone.

There are other cases pending in lower courts. Why would SCOTUS take any of them? The first obvious point is that whichever way things go, Justice Anthony Kennedy appears to be intent on laying down a doctrine that spans multiple cases. He may retire this year, and maybe he’s a man in a hurry.

I can think of reasons why the Supreme Court would want to take on the Maryland case sooner (rather than wait until it finishes with Whitford). First, the other cases in North Carolina and Pennsylvania have a certain family resemblance to Gill v. Whitford: they have delegations large enough to have multi-member delegations on both sides – and both are Republican gerrymanders. In a sense, they are redundant. For these cases, it would likely be sufficient to wait for whatever new law is made in Whitford.

Maryland, on the other hand, has novel features. For the politically-minded, it was committed by Democrats. A second ruling, coming soon after Whitford, would nail partisan gerrymandering as a bipartisan offense.

However, the Court may be more interested in a technical issue: there’s only one GOP seat remaining in Maryland. It was gerrymandered by spreading Democrats around as evenly as possible in the other 7 districts. I have offered a test that shows this, but it is distinct from the ones that are offered in a closely-divided state like Wisconsin.

Another way to establish that Maryland was gerrymandered is to look closely at how the districts were drawn. There are few enough districts (only eight) that one could reasonably hope to examine a single district. The focus of the plaintiffs’ case is the 6th, where Democrats were poached from the DC burbs to make it blue. This way of thinking about gerrymandering is not in Whitford.

Finally, there is a *great* human-interest angle. This suit was originally brought by Steve Shapiro, who lacked a law degree at the time. SCOTUS ruled that the lower court had to take him seriously. Now that’s impressive.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/12/08/another-scotus-partisan-gerrymandering-case-in-2017-2018-goes-forward/feed/11Politics & Polls #67: What happened in Virginia? with Larry Sabato and Geoffrey Skelleyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/17/politics-polls-67-what-happened-in-virginia-with-larry-sabato-and-geoffrey-skelley/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/17/politics-polls-67-what-happened-in-virginia-with-larry-sabato-and-geoffrey-skelley/#commentsFri, 17 Nov 2017 14:48:28 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20227Democrats scored big wins last week in New Jersey and Virginia elections. Julian Zelizer and I chew it over with Larry Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley. Plus a tiny bit about whether Alabama will elect a child molester as senator, or choose a Democrat who prosecutes KKK terrorists. Life is full of hard choices. All in the new Politics & Polls.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/17/politics-polls-67-what-happened-in-virginia-with-larry-sabato-and-geoffrey-skelley/feed/6Fall Football Lecture: Can Math Help Fix Bugs in Democracy?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/11/fall-football-lecture-can-math-help-fix-bugs-in-democracy/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/11/fall-football-lecture-can-math-help-fix-bugs-in-democracy/#commentsSat, 11 Nov 2017 17:14:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20220During college football season, the Princeton Alumni Association hosts fall lectures for people who come back to campus for the home games. This morning I gave the pregame lecture for the Yale game. My topic: can math help repair partisan gerrymandering and the Electoral College? Great audience, great questions.

There is no video available. However, the slides are here. The real-life experience is possible, but only if I come visit!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/11/fall-football-lecture-can-math-help-fix-bugs-in-democracy/feed/2Politics and Polls #66: Year of the Trumpquakehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/09/politics-and-polls-66-year-of-the-trumpquake/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/09/politics-and-polls-66-year-of-the-trumpquake/#commentsFri, 10 Nov 2017 01:10:27 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20216Our podcast is ranked #12 in News and Politics on iTunes! Which is pretty cool.

Here, Julian Zelizer and I look back on the last 12 months, including what we did and didn’t foresee after last November’s Trumpquake. Added bonus: I do impression of Russian spy. All in the new Politics & Polls.

The New Jersey governor’s race is a foregone conclusion – the winner should be Phil Murphy (D), which would give Democrats full control of government.

Virginia governor’s race looks close: Northam (D) leads Gillespie (R) by 2.5 +/- 0.9 % (median +/- SEM, n=4). It’s closer than expected, given that in Virginia, the President’s party (R) usually underperforms the previous year’s Presidential-election performance – and Hillary Clinton won Virginia by 5 percentage points. Note that all of the Virginia House of Delegates (the lower chamber) is up for election. The Virginia Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans, doesn’t have any seats up this time around – that happens in 2019. If Gillespie wins, that raises the possibility of total Republican control over Virginia’s redistricting in 2021. For these reasons, Virginia is worth watching – and getting out the vote. Turnout is key; to follow that, here’s a tracker!

4:48pm: As of 4:00pm, median turnout in the NextGen America precincts has already matched total 2013 turnout. Polls close at 7:00pm.

10:00pm: In Virginia, Northam’s win is headed for 8-10%, larger than expected from polls. It’s a large error, over 6 points…but then again, it would have been weird if Northam had *not* outperformed Clinton’s 5-point win last November. Some in the press are saying it was a huge blow to Trump and the GOP, but as far as I can tell, it’s just a continuation of the longstanding Virginia trend of going against the President’s party one year later.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/06/tuesday-election-tracker-on-daily-kos-elections/feed/15Tomorrow on WPRB w/These Vibes Are Too Cosmichttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/06/tomorrow-on-wprb-wthese-vibes-are-too-cosmic/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/06/tomorrow-on-wprb-wthese-vibes-are-too-cosmic/#respondTue, 07 Nov 2017 02:17:26 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20188Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6:45pm, I’ll go on WPRB Princeton 103.3 FM with Stevie Bergman, host of These Vibes Are Too Cosmic. Long-form college radio. She and her co-host Brian get great guests on scientific topics ranging from the paranormal to how alliances form on social media. It should be fun. NJ/PA area listeners and online WPRB fans, tune in!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/11/06/tomorrow-on-wprb-wthese-vibes-are-too-cosmic/feed/0Today on WHYY Radio Timeshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/19/today-on-whyy-radio-times/
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 09:18:25 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20175Today at 10:00am Eastern, WHYY Radio Times host Marty Moss-Coane will have me on to talk about partisan gerrymandering. Her other guest is Carol Kuniholm of Fair Districts PA. Pennsylvania is the largest gerrymandered state and there are several lawsuits brewing, so our discussion will be most timely.
Listen to the show here!
]]>Politics & Polls: What I saw in the Supreme Courthttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/12/politics-polls-what-i-saw-in-the-supreme-court/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/12/politics-polls-what-i-saw-in-the-supreme-court/#commentsThu, 12 Oct 2017 21:16:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20169Julian Zelizer and I talk about partisan gerrymandering, what I saw when I attended oral argument in Gill v. Whitford, and what it means for reform efforts nationwide. All in the new Politics & Polls.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/12/politics-polls-what-i-saw-in-the-supreme-court/feed/12Data Science in 30 Minutes: Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/11/data-science-in-30-minutes-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/11/data-science-in-30-minutes-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsThu, 12 Oct 2017 00:59:01 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20165Here’s a webinar on how data nerds can help fight partisan gerrymandering: You can help by joining state-level efforts, and by supporting our work.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/11/data-science-in-30-minutes-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/1Making Every Vote Count: Election reform and the National Popular Vote Compacthttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/07/making-every-vote-count/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/07/making-every-vote-count/#commentsSat, 07 Oct 2017 15:02:53 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20141

This morning I was on CNN (watch it here) with Mike Smerconish to talk about replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote. There’s a practical strategy for doing so: state-level legislation, in the form of the National Popular Vote Compact.

Some of the reasons for implementing a national popular vote may surprise you. One big reason is security. Today’s Electoral College opens a giant security hole. Hackers can target as few as five states to swing an election.

Another reason has to do with the fact that many communities are not represented in the swing states. To name a few: Mormons, Southern Baptists, and Americans of Puerto Rican descent all get left in the cold. Also, despite what you may believe, small states are mostly left out of influence.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/07/making-every-vote-count/feed/7What the Supreme Court didn’t say…yethttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/03/can-the-supreme-court-complete-bingo/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/03/can-the-supreme-court-complete-bingo/#commentsWed, 04 Oct 2017 00:51:17 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20098This bingo card turns out to be a fairly apt explanation for what did, and did not, happen during oral arguments today.First, a bit of color: I sat behind Bill Whitford, and to his right was former California Governor Arnold Schwarznegger. In front of them was Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin. That was cool.

Anyway, note the failure to make bingo above – and what is missing.

Generally, Supreme Court-watchers think that the Court may be ready to vote to restrain at least the Wisconsin gerrymander. Without getting into the details, justices tend to needle the side they end up voting against. Justice Anthony Kennedy asked many probing questions of the state of Wisconsin’s lawyers, but none at all of appellee’s lawyer, Paul M. Smith. Read the transcript to see more.

Kennedy appears to think that partisan gerrymandering is a Constitutional violation. He peppered one of appellant’s attorneys over a hypothetical he came up with: what if the Wisconsin state constitution said that redistricters should use traditional districting standards, but also favor party X? This went on a bit, and Kennedy seemed exasperated at the lack of a clear answer. He even came back to the topic, saying he was not satisfied with the answer thus far. Eventually, it appeared that appellant’s attorney thought it would be a constitutional offense. When asked under what amendment, she said Fourteenth. (Oops, that is not Kennedy’s favorite amendment. His favorite is the First Amendment, which he thinks governs this situation because gerrymandering penalizes expression of political affiliation.)

Kennedy also appears to think that a party’s voters statewide have standing to contest an offense in a specific district, even if they do not live there. A major point is whether gerrymandering of partisan voters in one part of the state is an infringement on voters throughout the state. Paul M. Smith expressed the idea that there was a difference between racial gerrymandering (which affects voters in a district, could be a district-specific offense) and partisan gerrymandering (in which voters choose to associate via partisan route; therefore, voters in one part of the state are affected when other voters are packed into districts). Roberts thought that it gave voters too little credit that they would be pigeonholed simply by virtue of their partisan affiliation. Therefore it has been speculated that Roberts may vote with the state of Wisconsin.

Toward the end, Smith was quite stirring. Roberts asked if a pro-Whitford decision would adversely affect the Court’s reputation by dragging it into politics, and invite a ton of cases. Smith said the Court was already getting a ton of cases, and unless they did something, there would be a “festival” of gerrymandering after 2020. Smith also said that more importantly, think about democracy itself.

So what’s missing? If you inspect the bingo card above, you will see that “bingo” could have been completed if any of the following words had been uttered: “equality of opportunity,” “statistical,” or “t-test.” Interestingly, Justice Sotomayor said that there were five standards for measuring partisan symmetry (some of which you can read about in this amicus brief). Justices Alito and Roberts appear to dislike social science and math, but their votes seem ungettable at this point. For a resolution, we will have to wait for the decision.

This leaves one loose end: in light of the oral arguments, why did the Court issue a stay in this case? Usually that is bad news for the lower court’s winning side. However, Rick Hasen suggests that it’s par for the course in redistricting cases.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/03/can-the-supreme-court-complete-bingo/feed/13Tom Pettyhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/03/tom-petty/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/10/03/tom-petty/#commentsTue, 03 Oct 2017 10:36:17 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20089This was the first Tom Petty song I loved.
So much bad news in the world. The biggest mass shooting in U.S. history. The rapid erosion of norms in our government’s institutions. Climate change-induced intensification of hurricanes, and the ensuing disaster in Puerto Rico. The post-apocalyptic imagery in the video above seems fitting.

However, there is a bright spot: U.S. science. Rosbash, Hall, and Young richly deserve their Nobel Prize for working out the genetics and molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythms. Surely every one of you has an opinion about whether you got enough sleep last night. Circadian rhythms are a central feature of our lives, and are critical for health. Their work was done in a small fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and the basic principles all apply to us. This prize, for molecular neuroscience, is a pinnacle of basic research, one that was made possible by the greatness of American scientific establishment.

Today, the Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Weiss, Thorne, and Barish, for the discovery of gravitational waves. Again, a milestone in basic research.

Off to the Supreme Court, to see whether (statistical) science cuts any ice with them.

On Tuesday at 10:00am, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Gill vs. Whitford, which concerns extreme partisan gerrymandering. Justice Ginsburg has suggested, with some justification I think, that this could be the most important case of the Court’s term. The tone and content of oral arguments are often predictive of the outcome. I will attend in person. And of course I will be watching the leaderboard at FantasySCOTUS.

The outcome is likely to hang on the vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. To quote Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog:

…the state’s ability to muster the five votes that it needed to put the lower court’s order on hold could bode poorly for the challengers, because one factor that the justices had to consider in making their decision was whether the state is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim. On the other hand, the case appears to have been scheduled for oral argument earlier than it might normally have been: Although the justices did not announce until June 19 that they would review Gill v. Whitford, it leapfrogged over several other cases (including two granted in February, two granted in March and one granted in April) to take a spot on the October argument calendar. That could suggest that the justices intend to try to decide the case quickly, which would in turn allow new maps to be drawn sooner even if the district court’s order is not in effect.

Attendees are not allowed to speak in the courtroom. Otherwise the bingo card above could help while the time away!

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is hiring! We’re looking for a computational research analyst to do geography-intensive calculations, test our simple statistical standards, and close loopholes in proposed reform efforts. It’s a full-time position, available immediately. Computational skills and an interest in U.S. election law are essential. The job ad is here.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/28/job-opportunity-computational-research-analyst-gerrymandering-and-redistricting/feed/4New Dataset: State Legislative Elections, 1971-2016http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/26/new-dataset-state-legislative-elections-1971-2012/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/26/new-dataset-state-legislative-elections-1971-2012/#commentsTue, 26 Sep 2017 16:00:47 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20022I’m pleased to say that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project has just published a new dataset of state legislative elections from 1972 to 2016. This database covers over 500 election/state/year combinations, and contains over 80,000 elections. The election results can be downloaded here, and the code can be viewed on github. The dataset is based on Carl Klarner’s candidate-level state legislative data, cleaned to remove multi-member elections and other issues, as well as Ballotpedia’s 2013 – 2016 election results.

For us, it’s a resource to analyze redistricting and gerrymandering. For you, it’s whatever you want to use it for. If you need technical assistance, please write to gerrymander@princeton.edu.

We’ll eventually combine these with information about the district maps under which each election was held. Stay tuned!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/26/new-dataset-state-legislative-elections-1971-2012/feed/12The Very Hungry Gerrymandering Projecthttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/were-on-the-university-homepage/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/were-on-the-university-homepage/#commentsMon, 25 Sep 2017 22:48:42 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20028 Gerrymandering comes to the forefront. See www.princeton.edu for a video about standards for extreme partisan gerrymandering that we are advocating, based on simple concepts of partisan symmetry and basic statistics. The explainer is pretty spiffy!

Want to know how gerrymandering has gotten so bad in the last few decades? Here’s a history (with numbers) in The American Prospect. A sidebar explains the math.

Finally, we have an interactive website for you to explore the offenses: gerrymander.princeton.edu. It documents Congressional and state-legislature gerrymanders, including Wisconsin Assembly, the topic of next week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford.

We hope you enjoy these explorations!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/were-on-the-university-homepage/feed/6When did partisan gerrymandering get worse, and why?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/when-did-partisan-gerrymandering-get-worse-and-why/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/when-did-partisan-gerrymandering-get-worse-and-why/#respondMon, 25 Sep 2017 11:22:13 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=20010Partisan gerrymandering: when did it get worse, why, & what can courts & reformers do? New at The American Prospect, we trace the roots of an offense that has ballooned in recent decades.

Also, over at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, we’ve added state legislative data. This includes data for the Wisconsin Assembly, which is important for next week’s Supreme Court case. Thanks to Rob Whitaker!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/25/when-did-partisan-gerrymandering-get-worse-and-why/feed/0A tutorial on partisan gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/07/a-tutorial-on-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/07/a-tutorial-on-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsThu, 07 Sep 2017 12:45:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19990Here’s a spiffy explainer video on how extreme partisan gerrymandering is committed, and how it can be detected by anyone who’s ever taken a basic statistics class.

Many thanks to the creatives behind this, Kyle McKernan and Danielle Alio of the Princeton University communications office. If you like their work, share it and “like” it!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/07/a-tutorial-on-partisan-gerrymandering/feed/9A Manageable Approach to Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/04/a-manageable-federalist-approach-to-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/09/04/a-manageable-federalist-approach-to-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsMon, 04 Sep 2017 18:22:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19972If the Supreme Court lays down a partisan symmetry-based standard for gerrymandering, will this open up a flood of lawsuits? Over at Election Law Blog, I use election evidence to argue that no, it will act as more of a brushback to future offenders.

The reason? As you can see in the chart, partisan gerrymanders only took off starting in the 2000 redistricting cycle, at the same time that it began to be thought that they were legal. Before then, they were considerably less common.

Thanks to Rick Hasen for hosting the essay, and to Brian Remlinger for data analysis.

Today we submitted our amicus brief (read the PDF) in the case of Gill v. Whitford. The authors are Heather Gerken, Jonathan N. Katz, Gary King, Larry Sabato, and me. In it, we argue that the Supreme Court should define basic fairness in redistricting using the concept of partisan symmetry. We use this idea to suggest simple statistical tests that could be used as a manageable standard to identify extreme partisan gerrymandering.

For example, are Democratic districts more packed than Republican districts than would be expected from inadvertent effects? That can be determined using Student’s t-test, the most common test in the sciences, invented by an experimental brewer at the Guinness Beer Company over 100 years ago.

If the Court accepts our recommendation, then there would be, for the first time, a way for courts to say when a partisan gerrymander has gone too far. This has been an unresolved issue since the mid-1980’s, when the Court first said that partisan gerrymandering was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Now that partisan gerrymanders have become rampant in the last redistricting cycle, we believe it is time for the Supreme Court to act.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/30/our-amicus-brief-in-gill-v-whitford/feed/0Gerrymandering vs. Math: Who will win?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/29/gerrymandering-vs-math-who-will-win/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/29/gerrymandering-vs-math-who-will-win/#respondTue, 29 Aug 2017 18:23:40 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19948From Emily Bazelon, a sharp look at partisan gerrymandering. Her thinking and analysis will resonate with fans of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

We’ll have more coverage soon, once the Supreme Court amicus filing deadline has passed…

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/29/gerrymandering-vs-math-who-will-win/feed/0Democratic Partisan Gerrymanders, 1972-presenthttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/23/democratic-partisan-gerrymanders-1972-present/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/23/democratic-partisan-gerrymanders-1972-present/#commentsWed, 23 Aug 2017 04:39:41 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19936The Princeton Gerrymandering Project makes it easy to browse all gerrymandering offenses for a given year. We are now starting to cross-reference these offenses with who had control over the redistricting process. It’s a daunting task, but our statistical analyst Brian Remlinger is on the case.

Below is a list of states from the 1970s through the 1990s that failed at least two of our three statistical tests of gerrymandering in at least one election. There are 14 of them. Of these, only three gave the advantage to the party that controlled the districting process. These are indicated in red. They are all Democratic gerrymanders.

1970s:

Illinois looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1972 and 1974. However, it was redistricted by a bipartisan state government.

Ohio* looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1972 and 1974. However, it was redistricted by a Democratic state government.

Kentucky looks like a Democratic gerrymander in 1972 and was redistricted by a Democratic statehouse.

Michigan looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1976 but was redistricted by a bipartisan statehouse.

Alabama looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1978 but was redistricted by a Democratic statehouse.

Illinois looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1982 but was redistricted by a court.

Ohio looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1982 but was redistricted by a bipartisan statehouse.

New York looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1982 but was redistricted by a bipartisan statehouse after preclearance was denied by the Justice Department for an initial bipartisan map.

Louisiana looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1986, but we ignored it because the jungle primary system distorts election results.

1990s:

California looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1992 and 1998, but was redistricted by a court.

Texas looks like a Democratic gerrymander in 1992 and 1994 and was (mostly) drawn by Democrats. The map was court-modified in 1996 (the famous Bush v. Vera case).

New York looks like a Republican gerrymander in 1998, but was redistricted by a court.

Illinois looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2000, but was redistricted by a court.

At that point, partisan gerrymandering starts to erupt – with Republicans as the most common offenders. Certainly there are exceptions – Maryland being one, where Democrats drew one Republican Congressional district out of existence, the subject of the current case of Benisek v. Mack. But in the 2000s and the 2010s, the tests flag a clear pattern:

2000s:

Michigan looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2002, 2004, and 2006 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Ohio looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2004 and 2006 and was redistricted and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Pennsylvania looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2004 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Florida looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2006 and 2008 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

North Carolina looks like a Democratic gerrymander in 2010 and was redistricted by Democrats.

California looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2008 but was redistricted by Democrats.

Illinois looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2002, 2006, 2008, and 2010 but was redistricted by a bipartisan statehouse.

2010s:

Pennsylvania looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012, 2014, and 2016 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Michigan looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012, 2014, and 2016 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

North Carolina looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012, 2014, and 2016 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Wisconsin looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2016 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Ohio looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse.

Virginia looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse (a court redrew the state’s Congressional lines in 2016).

Texas looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2016 and was redistricted by a Republican statehouse, later modified by the courts.

New Jersey looks like a Republican gerrymander in 2012. It was redistricted by a bipartisan political committee.

Note in particular that now the offenses are repeated from election to election, which indicates a more durable set of gerrymanders.

I do not think that Democrats are particularly noble when it comes to partisan gerrymandering. A more plausible hypothesis is that the stars aligned for Republicans: means (redistricting technology), motive (the widening gulf between the parties), and opportunity (the wave election of 2010). We’re currently preparing an article on the subject.

In the meantime, I welcome comments and corrections.

*Interestingly, it has been claimed that Ohio in the 1970s was an effective Democratic gerrymander. For now I will simply say that in terms of partisan representation, that appears not to be the case. There are other ways to label gerrymandering, and we are thinking about where this discrepancy in interpretations comes from.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/23/democratic-partisan-gerrymanders-1972-present/feed/4Politics & Polls: Charlottesville and our broken public discoursehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/17/politics-polls-the-aftermath-of-charlottesville-and-our-broken-public-discourse/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/17/politics-polls-the-aftermath-of-charlottesville-and-our-broken-public-discourse/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 16:09:40 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19925The route between public outrage and consequences for President Trump seems quite broken. Why? Julian Zelizer and I chew it over in the new Politics & Polls. The opening is especially lively. Later we get into the regular nerdery.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/17/politics-polls-the-aftermath-of-charlottesville-and-our-broken-public-discourse/feed/0The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is live!http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/04/the-princeton-gerrymandering-projects-new-website-is-live/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/04/the-princeton-gerrymandering-projects-new-website-is-live/#commentsFri, 04 Aug 2017 11:34:57 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19897I am happy to announce our revamped site at gerrymander.princeton.edu. This is part of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s tooling up for the coming several years of work by courts and reformers.

The site now has an interactive map showing the results of three simple gerrymandering tests, applied in all the states. It allows you to upload data more conveniently than before. Finally, it has a tutorial, as well as links to background reading and current court cases. Check it out!

All of this was done by the team: Rob Whitaker, Brian Remlinger, Aimee Otsu, Sung Chang, and Naomi Lake. Hats off to their great effort.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/08/04/the-princeton-gerrymandering-projects-new-website-is-live/feed/11Partisan gerrymandering case to be argued before Supreme Court on October 3rdhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/07/19/partisan-gerrymandering-case-to-be-argued-before-supreme-court-on-october-3rd/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/07/19/partisan-gerrymandering-case-to-be-argued-before-supreme-court-on-october-3rd/#commentsWed, 19 Jul 2017 18:22:58 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19881Just in: oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford will take place at 10:00am on Tuesday, October 3rd. It’s the second day of the fall term.

More big cases in October sitting — travel ban, gerrymandering, arbitration, immigration detention, ATS — than in all of last term pic.twitter.com/71dmkBfwvh

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/07/19/partisan-gerrymandering-case-to-be-argued-before-supreme-court-on-october-3rd/feed/3Partisan Gerrymandering Across the 50 Stateshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/07/16/partisan-gerrymandering-across-the-50-states/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/07/16/partisan-gerrymandering-across-the-50-states/#commentsSun, 16 Jul 2017 12:49:37 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19867Note: I’ll pretty this up later. In the meantime, the files are available for you to download and inspect at the end of this post.

Over at the Associated Press, reporter David Lieb has published a new, in-depth analysis of the effects of gerrymandering in the 2016 Congressional and statehouse elections. The analysis found that the same states identified as partisan gerrymanders in 2012 and 2014 in my Stanford Law Review article — North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Maryland — also show clear signs of advantage to the same political paty.

The analysis is important for two reasons: (1) It means that the advantages built into the district maps in 2012 aren’t dissipating, and that these gerrymanders will likely hold up through the 2020 elections, and (2) These advantages aren’t an accident, because they are echoed at the level of state legislatures. In short, the parties that were in power in 2011 are likely to have a strong hand in drawing the maps again in 2021. They will go unfettered unless the opposing party gains the governorship*.

While the AP report primarily relies on the “efficiency gap” analysis, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project provided a separate t-test** analysis of election results for the article. The agreement between the two tests is striking. Virtually*** every state flagged by the t-test at the Congressional level is also flagged by the efficiency gap. Generally, we have found that the efficiency gap does well except for having a higher false-positive rate than the t-test, which is unsurprising since the t-test has such a venerable history. At the state legislative level, 4 of the 6 worst offenders according to the efficiency gap are also captured by the t-test with exceedingly low p-values.

The results of our analysis of Congressional races can be found here, and results for state house elections can be found here.

I thank Brian Remlinger and Naomi Lake for assistance with this post.

>>>

*Currently, the opposition party holds the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania (Tom Wolf, a Democrat) and Maryland (Larry Hogan, a Republican). Note that in North Carolina, the governor has no role in redistricting.

**A note on statistical testing: Our analysis used one- or two-tailed t-tests, depending on redistricting authority. For states with single party control of redistricting, we carried out one-tailed tests for advantage in the direction of that party. For states with bipartisan or nonpartisan redistricting, we carried out two-tailed tests.

This is terrible news. As part of cutbacks at the Huffington Post, the tracking of polls will be curtailed dramatically. As reported by HuffPollster’s Ariel Edwards-Levy, they will only be tracking Trump’s favorability/unfavorability. All the other charts are now frozen. Evidently that includes the
generic House ballot, which I think is quite important.

This is a tremendous loss. The Princeton Election Consortium relies on their feed. They curate data, they apply their judgment, and they generate a structured API for dozens of races every year. It’s been a wonderful resource.

Personally, I would be willing to pay for such a feed. However, I’ve never been asked. Also, it’s not obvious whether there are enough subscribers to sustain their work.

I hope they re-expand operations in the future. In the meantime, I thank the many people who make HuffPost Pollster possible: Ariel Edwards-Levy, Janie Velencia, and before that Natalie Jackson, and before that Mark Blumenthal, and too many others to list here.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/15/sharp-reductions-in-huffpost-pollster/feed/10R.I.P., Adam Westhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/10/r-i-p-adam-west/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/10/r-i-p-adam-west/#commentsSat, 10 Jun 2017 15:54:34 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19853My favorite version of Batman.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/10/r-i-p-adam-west/feed/1Overcoming your own brain’s bias in the Comey/Trump casehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/07/overcoming-your-own-brains-bias-in-the-comeytrump-case/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/07/overcoming-your-own-brains-bias-in-the-comeytrump-case/#commentsWed, 07 Jun 2017 22:21:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19843Our brains have powerful biases that help us maintain a coherent world view. However, sometimes those biases prevent us from integrating new evidence well. Today, the release of former FBI director James Comey provides an example. Most readers on the left and the right see it as powerful evidence that President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, or at a minimum, tried to influence Comey improperly. But some defenders of Trump do not see it that way.

A powerful trick for overcoming biases is to “consider the opposite“: imagine that the story was the same, but reversed in some crucial way. That can lead evidence to look quite different.

In this case, here is how it works. Suppose that you are a Republican voter. Therefore your sympathies might naturally lie with Trump. In that case, imagine that Comey’s statement concerns not Donald Trump, but Barack Obama. In that case, it reads like this:

Ponder that as you work out your response to the evidence.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/07/overcoming-your-own-brains-bias-in-the-comeytrump-case/feed/14Politics & Polls: Teen Vogue’s Lauren Ducahttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/01/politics-polls-teen-vogues-lauren-duca/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/01/politics-polls-teen-vogues-lauren-duca/#commentsThu, 01 Jun 2017 19:20:53 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19837One of the more interesting post-election voices has been that of the magazine Teen Vogue. Normally one might think of Teen Vogue as being purely oriented toward culture and fashion…but the same could be said of Vanity Fair, GQ, and Rolling Stone – all of which have a strong political voice. Julian Zelizer and I interviewed Teen Vogue’s Lauren Duca, author of “Trump Is Gaslighting America.”

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/06/01/politics-polls-teen-vogues-lauren-duca/feed/2A Contest: Hack the Gerrymandering Standards!http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/20/hack-the-gerrymandering-standard/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/20/hack-the-gerrymandering-standard/#commentsSat, 20 May 2017 21:28:46 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19801June 1: Thank you for your entries. We are evaluating them, and will post the results – as well as an explainer for what we learned – shortly.

Today I did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit Politics. In conjunction with the AMA, we have a contest! The deadline is Wednesday, May 31st.

I have developed multiple statistical tests (Stanford Law Review) to detect partisan gerrymandering. These tests are focused on the principle of partisan symmetry, a phrase that appears in Supreme Court writings. In the past, a majority of justices of the Court has expressed interest in partisan symmetry as a standard, but there was not agreement on how to identify it. This year two cases, one in Wisconsin and one in North Carolina, give them an opportunity to address this task.

We need your help to see if the simple standards can be hacked. Many standards look reasonable on paper, but a clever person may be able to come up with ways to “game” the standards to benefit their side. In this contest, we are looking for talented hackers who can evade the rules and find ways to slip through the net. If you can do that, you can help us either rule out standards that are too loose or that need to be combined with other standards to close the net. Think of it as helping us build a spam filter for gerrymandering!

The contest is here. Use this worksheet[UPDATED 5/25 10:30am] to construct your entry, and then mail it to brem@princeton.edu.

If there are problems with the contest, please let us know in the comments section here.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/20/hack-the-gerrymandering-standard/feed/33Politics & Polls: Falling Toward Pavementhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/18/politics-polls-approaching-the-pavement/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/18/politics-polls-approaching-the-pavement/#commentsThu, 18 May 2017 17:31:16 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19793Washington has been hit with a trifecta of catastrophic events in the past week: Trump fires FBI director Comey for investigating Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, then Trump tells secrets to the Russians in the Oval Office, then it emerges that Comey writes memos about all his conversations, including Trump trying to obstruct the FBI investigation.

What’s next in the ongoing saga of the Trump presidency? Listen to this time capsule, in which Julian and I speak to you from the distant past of…yesterday at 1:15pm.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/18/politics-polls-approaching-the-pavement/feed/3Gerrymanders, Part 3: Redistricting Nerds, Geographic Compactness Does Not Solve Your Problemshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/14/gerrymanders-part-3-why-map-based-reform-alone-is-doomed-to-fail/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/14/gerrymanders-part-3-why-map-based-reform-alone-is-doomed-to-fail/#commentsSun, 14 May 2017 20:27:38 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19776For general audiences, I have written quite a bit about gerrymandering in the New York Times (in 2013 and in 2015) and recently, in the Los Angeles Times. In addition, I have drilled into the technical details in the Stanford Law Review and here at the Princeton Election Consortium (part 1 and part 2). Today I want to discuss map-based reforms, such as the belief that requiring geographic “compactness” will solve the problem. Today I will explain why such an approach is flawed, potentially fatally.

A correspondent, Ira K., asks “what about a Constitutional amendment that requires that Congressional districts have boundaries that consisted only of state borders and at most n additional edges, where the additional edges were latitude and longitude lines,” where n is some reasonable limit?

This is just one example of a map-based reform. Another example would be a reform that focuses on geographic compactness, which reformers imagine will do away with gerrymandering. However, this is not true.

The short answer is that geometry- and boundary-based solutions to gerrymandering are (a) doomed to failure, (b) inconsistent with current law, and (c) in many ways undesirable. This is mostly described in my Stanford Law Review article, which I recommend to those who wish to get into the details.

To elaborate:

Doomed to failure: Despite the intuitive appeal of requiring simple boundaries, such boundaries can still favor one party over another. Well-known examples include the current Michigan Congressional map, the current North Carolina Congressional map, and even the original gerrymander of 1812 in Massachusetts. In all cases, boundaries are relatively straight and even follow county lines for the most part. In other words, the districts are largely geographically “compact.” Yet all three cases give one major party a strong and asymmetric advantage over the other party.

The reason for this is simple: it’s not really possible to limit the drawing of boundaries enough to constrain partisanship, yet still allow population equality to be maintained and communities of interest to be kept together.

Inconsistent with current law: The Supreme Court has clearly said that single-district maps can assume odd shapes. They have said a district should be “compact” — but they have also said that compactness can be metaphorical, for instance involving the the joining of related communities of interest that are separated in space. In addition, the Voting Rights act Actually requires the drawing of districts where minority communities have the ability to elect members that represent them fairly.

Undesirable: In many ways, it is undesirable to constrain the drawing boundaries in the way you describe. Putting an artificial condition on district shape, such as limiting the number of sides and vertices, also puts severe limits on what legislators can do. There’s an old political science saying that all districting is gerrymandering. Another way of saying this is that compromises have to be made in order to satisfy all the many constituencies that compose a community. Although we may not like the idea of legislators doing this, it is part of their job. It could also be done by a commission of people who will take the same trade-offs into account. But an automated algorithm would be very limiting.

Looking at this another way, I will merely point out that no legislature is likely to ever allow such a process to be automated. So in addition to being a method that will not work, it is hard to pass into law.

>>>

It is for these reasons that I have taken a statistical approach to diagnose gerrymanders. To make an analogy to medical testing, we do not need to recapitulate the biology of cancer in order to diagnose cancer; we merely need a test that detects it with high accuracy. It is the same with gerrymandering. We don’t need to draw maps to detect when an offense has occurred. Since the goal of a partisan redistricter is to pack votes in some districts and crack them in others, vote totals themselves provide a valuable guide for detecting when they have achieved their goal.

Interestingly, the fair drawing of districts could also be mandated using a statistical approach. The rule would be that one side’s winning districts should not be won by more lopsided majorities than the other side’s districts. That would pretty much solve the problem at a stroke.

On January 28th, I came up with 10 events that, if they happened, would constitute evidence of an authoritarian government. Now it’s the fourth month. As the Administration becomes engulfed by the growing Russia scandal and possible obstruction of justice by Trump himself, how are they coming along on the authoritarian front?

Actually…not that bad. At the one-month mark, I estimated that the Administration had committed or attempted six out of ten of the acts. This week’s news, in which Trump fired FBI director James Comey for investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, has cemented #1 and #8. However, on the good side, some other items have subsided somewhat. Overall, I’d score things at five out of ten and holding.

What’s going on? It appears that the pattern of malevolence tempered by incompetence has held back the worst offenses. And the judiciary has held up well as an institutional check on executive power.

This pattern extends not only to authoritarianism, but other domains as well. It’s been tough for the Administration to make progress in domestic policy, perhaps due to Trump’s lack of knowledge or attention span. A recent interview reveals the depth of this ignorance, as dissected by Matt Yglesias. In complete contrast to Trump’s budget request, the federal budget deal was a bipartisan agreement: virtually no cuts to EPA, increases in military spending and biomedical research, and preservation of pretty much everything else. The passage of an AHCA bill out of the House was an unexpected victory, but I have a feeling that the expanding Trump/Russia scandal is going to slow that down.

Still, the list below is worth keeping in mind. One international incident, one domestic emergency, and it’s quite possible that the roaring parade of scandal might be forgotten by our brilliant television media.

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group (e.g. LGBT, Muslim, and other groups). (2/16: also the intelligence community). And now, the firing of FBI director James Comey…though really, this is more in the category of obstruction of justice. YES

Use of the Presidency to incite popular violence against individuals or organizations.

Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court. Looked like it was going to happen, and certainly he’s fulminated about disbanding an appeals court, but…not yet.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/11/authoritarian-government-watch-update/feed/18What Makes A Presidential Transition Successful?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/06/what-makes-a-presidential-transition-successful/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/06/what-makes-a-presidential-transition-successful/#commentsSat, 06 May 2017 12:33:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19740On Politics & Polls, Julian and I talk with Chris Lu, director of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team in 2008, and Deputy Secretary of Labor. We talk about both subjects. We got into depth about what makes a transition succeed (Obama) or flounder (Clinton, Trump). Listen to Politics & Polls #42.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/06/what-makes-a-presidential-transition-successful/feed/2How much difference does partisan gerrymandering make? North Carolina and across the decadeshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/05/how-much-difference-does-partisan-gerrymandering-make/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/05/how-much-difference-does-partisan-gerrymandering-make/#commentsFri, 05 May 2017 18:58:02 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19714Today in the Los Angeles Times, Brian Remlinger and I explain partisan gerrymandering, and how many seats it may be worth. Based on our analysis, more seats are affected by partisan gerrymandering now than at any point in the last five cycles of redistricting. In 2017, over 70 seats are made uncompetitive, favoring both parties. The net effect is a change in the margin of about 15 Congressional seats, in a direction favoring Republicans. Considering that the outcome of Affordable Care Act repeal yesterday in the House was decided by 4 votes, the advantage from gerrymandering is highly consequential.

We also review what the Supreme Court could do in the coming term to limit partisan gerrymandering. Two cases are coming before them, from Wisconsin and from North Carolina. Here at Princeton we are developing standards and a framework for the Court’s use. Read about in the Stanford Law Review and check out our website, gerrymander.princeton.edu. If you’re interested, perhaps join the effort!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/05/05/how-much-difference-does-partisan-gerrymandering-make/feed/14Politics & Polls: The First 100 Dayshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/28/politics-polls-the-first-100-days/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/28/politics-polls-the-first-100-days/#respondFri, 28 Apr 2017 20:08:19 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19702Historian Meg Jacobs, Julian, and I chew over how Trump’s first 100 days. Listen to my reaction to Jacobs’s assertion that Trump is off to a strong start. If spit-up coffee could get through speakers, you would be well coated.

In seriousness, my own view is that Trump has weakened the presidency through ineffectiveness at pushing policy goals with Congress, getting multiple executive orders turned back by the judiciary, and making utterances that are increasingly seen as being without force. Kind of like Franklin D. Roosevelt in reverse.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/28/politics-polls-the-first-100-days/feed/0Politics & Polls w/Congressman Leonard Lancehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/24/politics-polls-wcongressman-leonard-lance/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/24/politics-polls-wcongressman-leonard-lance/#commentsMon, 24 Apr 2017 09:54:23 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19694Representative Leonard Lance has been in the crosshairs of activists. His Congressional district went narrowly for Clinton over Trump, and before going to Washington he had a reputation as a moderate. I interviewed Congressman Lance solo (Julian’s overseas). In our far-ranging conversation, we talked about many topics: the Affordable Care Act (he’s in favor of continuing payments to insurers; this is a fairly big deal in my opinion), Russian interference, legislation to sell your browsing habits to your ISP, and Lance’s own transition from NJ to DC.

For Politics & Polls #39, we were joined by Woodrow Wilson alumnus General David Petraeus. Is the “deep state” a sinister conspiracy, or an institution that prevents insane policies? As Trump brings Syria, North Korea, and Afghanistan to a boil, is it good or bad to have ex-military serve at the highest levels of government? According to Petraeus, maybe…

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/13/politics-polls-39-with-general-david-petraeus/feed/7Politics & Polls #38: Sarah Kendzior on Trump/Russiahttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/09/politics-polls-38-sarah-kendzior-on-trumprussia/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/09/politics-polls-38-sarah-kendzior-on-trumprussia/#commentsSun, 09 Apr 2017 17:52:12 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19629Sarah Kendzior was among the first writers to point out Trump’s likely rise, and to trace it to white anger in “flyover country,” a term she gets to use because she lives in Missouri. She writes for the Toronto Globe & Mail, and has a lot to say about the Trump/Russia connection. It was a particularly lively interview.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/09/politics-polls-38-sarah-kendzior-on-trumprussia/feed/5Post-November Optimism Crashes After Failure of ACA Repealhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/04/what-happened-in-march/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/04/what-happened-in-march/#commentsTue, 04 Apr 2017 21:03:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19599Light posting these last few months. Spring term is busy. But hey, there’s always the podcast, which is not bad.

Today I post this somewhat underappreciated survey quantity, the right-track/wrong-track question. It asks whether respondents think the United States is on the right track or wrong track.

This survey has been in consistently negative territory for a long time, but there are three notable breaks in that trend.

The “wrong track” number started trending down slowly in early November, right around Election Day.

The “right track number started moving up in January, around the time of the inauguration.

Both trends reversed around the second week of March (see the vertical line).

It’s hard to pin exact dates on the transitions because it depends on the details of the Huffington Post’s smoothing and graphing rules. In fact, the vertical line above is set at March 7th…but that point on the graph could include survey data from later dates. I need to look into that.

The graph is approximately consistent with shifts in the national mood associated with Trump’s win and inauguration – followed by the bursting of a bubble in mid-March. What caused that break in the trend? One possibility is the death spiral of the American Health Care Act (i.e. Affordable Care Act repeal), which reached an end on March 24th. Certainly the writing was on the wall for at least a week. Or it could be something else. Whatever the case, it appears that any net optimism triggered by Trump’s win has almost completely dissipated.

Update: the cause was almost certainly the failure of ACA repeal. Paul Ryan’s approve/disapprove numbers took a sharp turn at just about the same time.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/04/04/what-happened-in-march/feed/6Politics & Polls #37: a chat with Robert Costahttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/30/politics-polls-37-a-chat-with-robert-costa/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/30/politics-polls-37-a-chat-with-robert-costa/#commentsThu, 30 Mar 2017 14:06:01 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19584Julian Zelizer and I interviewed Robert Costa, political reporter for the Washington Post. Costa’s been covering national politics for many years. Last Friday, he was the first person that Donald Trump called to talk about the cancellation of the vote on Affordable Care Act repeal. We got into what it was like to get the call, and also lots of other topics, including the coming budget battle and whether Neil Gorsuch will make it onto the Supreme Court.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/30/politics-polls-37-a-chat-with-robert-costa/feed/4Politics & Polls #36: Science, Politics, and the War on Knowledgehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/23/politics-polls-36-science-politics-and-the-war-on-knowledge/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/23/politics-polls-36-science-politics-and-the-war-on-knowledge/#commentsThu, 23 Mar 2017 20:41:00 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19577A President who denies that CO2 causes climate change, and who believes the falsehood that vaccines cause autism. A climate change denier at the Environmental Protection Agency. No national science adviser. And deep cuts are proposed to the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and other research programs. What’s going on?

Julian Zelizer and I interviewed Rush Holt. Holt is a former plasma physicist, a former Congressman…and a five-time Jeopardy winner. So he is well-equipped to talk about facts and science. Now he’s CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a premier scientific society in the United States. He had a lot to say about what I call the War on Knowledge.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/23/politics-polls-36-science-politics-and-the-war-on-knowledge/feed/3Politics & Polls #35: Intellectual Foundations of the Trumpist Movementhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/19/politics-polls-35-the-intellectuals-of-the-trumpist-movement/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/19/politics-polls-35-the-intellectuals-of-the-trumpist-movement/#commentsSun, 19 Mar 2017 19:32:40 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19570In the summer of 2015, Julius Krein started an online blog called the Journal of American Greatness. A bit tongue-in-cheek at the time, it has morphed into something more serious: a journal called American Affairs. Julian Zelizer and I find out from Krein what he thinks are the defensible intellectual pillars of Trumpism. Amazingly, one of them rhymes with “Shmocialized Schmedicine.” Listen!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/19/politics-polls-35-the-intellectuals-of-the-trumpist-movement/feed/1Politics & Polls #34: How (Ab)normal is the Trump presidency?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/09/politics-polls-34-how-abnormal-is-the-trump-presidency/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/09/politics-polls-34-how-abnormal-is-the-trump-presidency/#commentsThu, 09 Mar 2017 15:08:56 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19566We’re almost halfway through Trump’s first 100 days in office. There’s been a lot of heat, noise – and executive orders. But not legislation. Is this abnormal? Or is it par for the course? Julian Zelizer and I drill into these questions, inspired by a recent article in The Upshot. Listen!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/09/politics-polls-34-how-abnormal-is-the-trump-presidency/feed/1Politics & Polls #33: Trade in a Trumpian Worldhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/07/politics-polls-33-trade-in-a-trumpian-world/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/07/politics-polls-33-trade-in-a-trumpian-world/#commentsTue, 07 Mar 2017 07:28:41 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19562Julian Zelizer and I Sam Wang interviewed Michael Froman. Ambassador Froman served in President Obama’s cabinet as the U.S. Trade Representative from June 2013 to January 2017. We had a vivid discussion about what trade agreements do – and don’t – accomplish. In what was probably my favorite moment in the interview, he held up his smartphone (you can’t see it of course) and said that without free trade, the phone would cost $2,500.

Such a vivid argument was missing during the 2016 Presidential campaign. But you get to hear it on Politics and Polls!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/03/07/politics-polls-33-trade-in-a-trumpian-world/feed/4Homeland Security Memo on Actual Sources of Terrorismhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/26/homeland-security-memo-on-actual-sources-of-terrorism/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/26/homeland-security-memo-on-actual-sources-of-terrorism/#commentsSun, 26 Feb 2017 12:02:53 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19556The memo is here. Based on analysis of actual identified threats and incidents relevant to the U.S., the top seven nations are Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Uzbekistan. Although all but two (Cuba and Ethiopia) are predominantly-Muslim countries, there is not much overlap with the countries named in the Muslim travel ban. For instance, Iran and Syria are not on this list.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/26/homeland-security-memo-on-actual-sources-of-terrorism/feed/1Politics & Polls #32: Israel and Palestinehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/23/politics-polls-32-israel-and-palestine/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/23/politics-polls-32-israel-and-palestine/#commentsFri, 24 Feb 2017 01:28:36 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19548Almost every U.S. president has struggled to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. A two-state solution was already looking fleeting. What can we expect to see from President Donald Trump? In Politics & Polls, George W. Bush’s Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, joined Julian Zelizer and me to take a hard look at Israel policy…and its baroque domestic politics.

His solution is a citizens’ commission to take redistricting out of the hands of legislators. As I have analyzed (see page 1296), the California Redistricting Commission has done a good job of creating competitive races where none existed before.

A commission-based approach has the advantage that it can potentially address a wide variety of offenses: partisan gerrymanders, uncompetitive districts, and racial packing. The key is to write the law with care. For example, in combating partisan gerrymandering, specifying compact districts is not as useful as it sounds unless partisan symmetry is also included as a criterion.

Another approach is to go through the courts. In this domain, an important issue is partisan gerrymandering, where levels of representation are distorted. Cases in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland are percolating through the courts, with at least one of those cases (Wisconsin) likely to hit the Supreme Court in the fall.

If you’re interested in this topic, next Thursday and Friday there’s a major conference on partisan redistricting, at Duke University. If you’re in the area, register and attend!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/22/arnold-schwarzenegger-breaks-down-gerrymandering/feed/4Politics & Polls #30http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/10/politics-polls-30/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/10/politics-polls-30/#commentsFri, 10 Feb 2017 19:31:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19519A federal appeals court has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order issuing an immigration ban barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Trump also has made moves toward building a border wall with Mexico, which recent figures suggest may cost an estimated $21 billion.

To get into what these moves would actually accomplish, Julian Zelizer and I took a deep dive into immigration and border control with Doug Massey, one of the country’s leading experts in this field. Massey busted many myths, including the question of whether the effect of a border wall is to keep people out of the United States – or cage them inside.

Bonus: Doug Massey has made a cool appearance on Adam Ruins Everything to explain these points. Scroll to 3:20. Doug is hilarious.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/10/politics-polls-30/feed/5Awesome telling of the story of 2016http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/08/awesome-telling-of-the-story-of-2016/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/08/awesome-telling-of-the-story-of-2016/#commentsThu, 09 Feb 2017 01:32:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19513A splendid telling of the story of 2016, by Mike Davis at Jacobin. Davis weaves together unbreakable party loyalty, evangelicals, redistricting and gerrymandering, and the hostile takeover of the Republicans into a coherent tale. I don’t know of a better telling of where we went – and where we may go next.

To be continued.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/08/awesome-telling-of-the-story-of-2016/feed/12Live feed of Ninth Circuit – Muslim ban casehttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/07/live-feed-of-ninth-circuit-muslim-ban-case/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/07/live-feed-of-ninth-circuit-muslim-ban-case/#respondWed, 08 Feb 2017 00:04:24 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19508Oral arguments here.Liveblogging at the New York Times suggests that at least two of the three judges on the panel lean toward keeping the ban suspended for now. Whatever happens, the court will consider the ban’s merits later.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/07/live-feed-of-ninth-circuit-muslim-ban-case/feed/0Auto-Crat (TM) 1.0http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/05/auto-crat-1-0/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/05/auto-crat-1-0/#commentsSun, 05 Feb 2017 16:48:09 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19494Here is an idea that, if done well, subverts the use of Twitter as a political tool by making the content into a joke.

“No Trump Tower against me blacks from @SarahPalinUSA look forward to it. He should go down. Make America Great Again!

We hear about technology as a destroyer of jobs: automated factories, and maybe someday self-driving cars. These trends hit a whole sector of Trump’s supporters. But could the need for Trump himself be eliminated?

Above is an example of a Trump tweet simulator. The idea is fairly simple. Trump’s tweets have many distinctive characteristics: “Sad!” “Overrated!” and the like. It does not seem like such a stretch to take all of Donald Trump’s tweets (and maybe utterances too) and train an algorithm to spew out text that has the same statistical properties. This is exactly what Justin Stanley has taken a Trump lexicon and used it to train a neural network. His network generates a random sequence of characters like the one above.

It is clearly a work in progress. But it could be great as a real tool. It’s almost as coherent as Trump; add a few rules, and it could be a competent emulator. Plus, it is less likely to cause international incidents.

If Trump’s 140-character pearls can be emulated by a computer algorithm, that could be a convenience for Steve Bannon. After all, puppet Trump is fairly expensive to operate, even with Russian subsidies. With the help of Auto-Crat, Bannon could reduce Trump’s hours to executive-order signing ceremonies.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/05/auto-crat-1-0/feed/14Politics & Polls #29http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/03/politics-polls-29-t/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/02/03/politics-polls-29-t/#commentsFri, 03 Feb 2017 12:34:58 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19481Are we seeing the birth cries of an authoritarian regime? Or is it the gang that couldn’t shoot straight? Julian Zelizer and I debate this and more in episode #29 of Politics & Polls.

#2: On the day of the inauguration, journalists were arrested. Does that count? It might be an isolated instance. I’m not counting it.

#3: Trump’s only calling on right-wing outlets at press conferences. A borderline situation, but it seems like a major disconnect with the press. (Update 2/17: he called on some regular reporters, such as CNN’s Jim Acosta…though he did abuse them a fair bit.)

#4: Trump makes false claims of massive voter fraud. These claims have no basis in reality.

#5: Feb. 17: In his meandering, uncomfortable press conference yesterday, Trump said he was directing the Justice Department to investigate criminal leaks. Usually, Presidents do not direct criminal investigations because of the concern of politicizing law enforcement. Does this meet criteria? I’m not counting it yet…but it’s developing.

#8: This is in flux. Acting Attorney General Yates was a career civil servant, but also an appointee of the previous Administration. However, in light of the multiple lower-court orders regarding the executive order, her firing raises questions about whether the rule of law is being eroded. Also, Press Secretary Sean Spicer has made threats against career diplomats in the State Department that if they don’t agree with the President’s executive order, they should leave. After feedback from pechmerle (see comments), I am downgrading this for now.

Overall, what is probably needed is a graded scale: (a) none, (b) one or two isolated instances; (c) a pattern of conduct or purposeful effort; and (d) establishment of a standing policy. As conditions deteriorate, I can formalize this approach.

Also, unfortunately I left out things like making obvious false statements, for instance the recent falsehoods about voting fraud, or invocation of an event that never happened like the “Bowling Green Massacre”; and curtailment of free speech of government employees. Maybe that can be a separate list. I am interested in what other indicators have been left out.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/28/authoritarian-government-watch-week-1/feed/46Politics & Polls #28: Katha Pollitt on The Women’s March on Washingtonhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/26/politics-polls-28-katha-pollitt-on-the-womens-march-on-washington/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/26/politics-polls-28-katha-pollitt-on-the-womens-march-on-washington/#commentsFri, 27 Jan 2017 00:17:18 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19435Hailed as one of the largest protests in American history, the Women’s March on Washington gathered hundreds of thousands of people in the District and millions in sister marches around the world. In episode #28 of Politics & Polls, Julian Zelizer and I discuss the march and reproductive rights with Katha Pollitt, a columnist for The Nation.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/26/politics-polls-28-katha-pollitt-on-the-womens-march-on-washington/feed/1Can the speech rights of government employees be restricted?http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/25/can-the-speech-rights-of-government-employees-be-restricted/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/25/can-the-speech-rights-of-government-employees-be-restricted/#commentsWed, 25 Jan 2017 13:19:02 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19424Federal agencies have come under pressure to stop communicating about the science of climate change. The National Park Service has recently deleted social-media communications about carbon dioxide, which is the main cause of global warming.

However, it turns out that there are First Amendment issues. A public employee is allowed to speak publicly or share information with the media, if that information is not secret or classified, and if that person speaks as a citizen and not as a representative of the government. Amanda Marcotte reports.

Update: commenter Pechmerle, a lawyer, points out that the Supreme Court has, in a series of leading cases, laid out a balancing test between the government’s legitimate interests in confidentiality vs. the employee’s right to speak out. It’s a three-part test:

(1) The speech is a matter of “public concern,”
(2) The employee spoke as a private citizen and not a public employee (i.e., speech is not pursuant to “official duties”), and
(3) The employee’s speech interest outweighs the agency’s interest in efficiency and effectiveness.

Note particularly the word “outweighs” in factor (3). Such balancing tests get fleshed out, over time, slowly and painfully, as lower court cases face specific fact situations. The good news is that the ACLU has already announced that it stands ready to assist any federal employee faced with improper suppression of his/her speech.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/25/can-the-speech-rights-of-government-employees-be-restricted/feed/14Readings for the Inauguration…and the day afterhttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/readings-for-the-inauguration/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/readings-for-the-inauguration/#commentsFri, 20 Jan 2017 03:40:13 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19395Dissent is a patriotic act, when you are trying to make a nation better, or prevent it from becoming worse. For why protest matters, see Eugene Robinson and Sarah Jaffe. Practically speaking, protest by itself does not achieve a goal, but as Jaffe argues, protest is a vital part of democracy, and is way for those who feel strongly to discover that they are not alone. It is a first step before later, practical actions (see Indivisible, the ACLU, the Brennan Center, Evan McMullin, and other links in the right sidebar).

Needless to say, the best outcome would be if the worst fears expressed about the new Administration never came to pass. It could happen if the press faces up to the threat they face (see Josh Marshall), if progressives rise to the occasion (see Indivisible), and if conservatives of conscience make it clear that many issues, such as equal justice for all and freedom of expression, transcend party (see Evan McMullin). If these three groups succeed, it would be a testament to Churchill’s statement that Americans can be relied upon to do the right thing, after trying all the alternatives.

In the meantime, here are some of the fears: essays by Masha Gessen, Timothy Snyder, Aleksandar Hemon, and Sarah Kendzior. Krugman points out that the incoming administration isn’t ready, which may slow things a bit and suggests a different, perhaps less threatening, kind of failure. My analysis of President Trump’s record-low approval ratings suggests a surprisingly weak presidency.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/readings-for-the-inauguration/feed/5Politics & Polls #27: Who Will Rebuild the Democratic Party? (spoiler: you)http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/politics-polls-27-who-will-rebuild-the-democratic-party-spoiler-you/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/politics-polls-27-who-will-rebuild-the-democratic-party-spoiler-you/#commentsThu, 19 Jan 2017 19:37:15 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19392In episode #27 of Politics & Polls, Julian Zelizer and I interview leading political scientist Theda Skocpol about her recent article in Vox: “A Guide to Rebuilding the Democratic Party from the Ground Up.” In the piece, Skocpol outlines how the Democratic Party can be rebuilt from the ground up, beginning at the state and local levels.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/19/politics-polls-27-who-will-rebuild-the-democratic-party-spoiler-you/feed/1I’m joining The American Prospect!http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/17/im-joining-the-american-prospect/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/17/im-joining-the-american-prospect/#commentsTue, 17 Jan 2017 23:52:21 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19359I’m pleased to announce that I have agreed to join The American Prospect as a contributing editor. As many of you may know, the Prospect has a history of taking on political writers at the start of their careers: Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Josh Marshall, Jamelle Bouie, and others. It is an honor to join the latest generation of contributors, especially at a pivotal time in history. By the way, you should support the Prospect by subscribing or donating.

I will continue to write here. I’ll use the Princeton Election Consortium to post more technical analyses, kick around data-in-the-public-interest ideas for my new class, and go into depth on matters of statistics, law, and elections.

My first piece at the Prospect…concerns presidential approval at the Obama-to-Trump transition, which is showing the biggest nosedive in over 60 years. Check it out.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/17/im-joining-the-american-prospect/feed/3A New Project on Partisan Gerrymanderinghttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/17/a-new-project-on-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/17/a-new-project-on-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsTue, 17 Jan 2017 14:09:59 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19305Tweet
This is a big year for partisan gerrymandering. Recently, star litigator Paul M. Smith has cleared the decks for voting-rights cases in the courts. That’s just one move of many that assures that voting rights will be in the spotlight in the coming Supreme Court term.

The effects of partisan gerrymandering are plain in the graph above. Up until and including the election of 2010, seats the U.S. House were related to the national vote as indicated by the shaded gray zone. The redistricting of 2010 led to a jump of about a dozen seats away from recent historical trends. The suddenness of this change, along with my statistical analysis (Stanford Law Review) reveals how this jump arose from partisan redistricting efforts in a handful of states. The jump comes from the fact that more advantage was gained by one side (NC, PA, OH, MI, VA) than the other (IL, MD). This net change can vary by decade, and depends on who controls the legislative process.

Today, I am pleased to announce that starting in 2017, I will take my work on partisan gerrymandering to a new level. I am now looking for full-time help for the next one to two years.

As many readers know, I have developed simple statistical standards to define partisan gerrymandering. These standards are designed to be consistent with existing Supreme Court precedent, and avoid statutory and Constitutional landmines that other standards may hit. Representationally, this project may lead to a net change of dozens of House and other legislative seats. Cases are now percolating through courts in Maryland (a gerrymander that benefits Democrats) and Wisconsin and North Carolina (benefiting Republicans). Without getting into the details, I will say that our work will be unique, and is highly likely to be deployed as an argument in these cases.

I am now recruiting a Statistical Research Assistant to analyze elections and redistricting. The term of appointment is one year, renewable for a second year.

Together, we will:

Apply the statistical analysis to Congress and state legislatures, 1900-now, to identify which states and parties benefited, and to compare this with patterns of legislative control;

Compare the results with map-based methods and other newer standards such as the efficiency gap; and

Assist in the preparation of reports, in-depth analysis, and possible peer-reviewed publications.

This position is very suitable for someone who is between college and graduate school. More experienced applicants are also welcome. In all cases, the person must be available full-time. Progress on this project will drive practical impacts and original publications. The ideal candidate will have experience in statistics, have some experience with MATLAB and Python, and be able to communicate clearly and accurately with non-statistician audiences. He/she will learn to use Maptitude for Redistricting.

If time and expertise permit, we will also make the site gerrymander.princeton.edu more user-friendly. For this work, I am looking for a second person with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python abilities. This may be a contract or shared-time position.

Soon there will be an official job posting, at which time the goals and requirements may be modified slightly. In advance of that, I invite interested people to send me an email at sswang@princeton.edu and describe their qualifications and availability.

In The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik has an excellent piece pointing out the true threats to U.S. democracy, which transcend partisan concerns. As patriotic Americans, can we recognize these threats, separately from policy outcomes we like or dislike? What bright-line events would be difficult to remedy by sitting passively until the next election?

He advises that policy concerns are simply normal politics:

Many programs and policies with which progressive-minded people passionately disagree will be put forward over the next few years. However much or strongly one opposes them, they are, like it or not, the actual agreed-on platform of a dominant national party….One may oppose these things—and one should, passionately and permanently—but they are in no sense illegitimate….They are also reversible by the same laws and rules and norms and judicial and, perhaps most of all, electoral processes that created them. If we want gun control, we need to get more people caring about it and more people in more places voting for it; we cannot complain because people who don’t want gun control don’t give it to us.

But, he continues, threats to American institutions are more serious.

Assaults on free speech; the imprisoning of critics and dissidents; attempts, on the Russian model, likely to begin soon, to intimidate critics of the regime with fake charges and conjured-up allegations; the intimidation and intolerance of even mild dissidence (that “Apologize!” tweet directed at members of the “Hamilton” cast who dared to politely petition Mike Pence); not to mention mass deportations or attempts at discrimination by religion—all things that the Trump and his cohorts have openly contemplated or even promised—are not part of the normal oscillations of power and policy. They are unprecedented and, history tells us, likely to be almost impossible to reverse.

I’ve been wondering what would be likely, bright-line indicators that institutions are collapsing. The depredations will be hard to keep up with, but it might be good to have a checklist before the inauguration.

Taking sides with a foreign power against domestic opposition (this already happened, but is worth a re-mention).

Detention of journalists.

Loss of press access to the White House.

Made-up charges against those who disagree with the government.

Use of governmental power to target individual citizens for retribution.

Use of a terrorist incident or an international incident to take away civil liberties.

Persecution of an ethnic or religious minority, either by the Administration or its supporters.

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group (e.g. LGBT, Muslim, and other groups).

Use of the Presidency to incite popular violence against individuals or organizations.

Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court.

Some are listed by Gopnik. Can you think of more?

Of course, it is certainly possible that very few of these events will come to pass. That would be by far the best outcome. After all, Trump is a historically unpopular President-elect – the least popular in the history of modern polling. That could hold him back. And I would be delighted if none of these events came to pass.

However, it seems wise now to lay out a worst-case scenario, and be ready for it. As Gopnik says, it is time for the political left and right to make common cause:

So we need to stiffen our spines and broaden our embrace, grasp tightly but reach out far. The conservatives who see Trump for what he is and are shocked by it—and there are many, though not as many as there should be—should be welcomed….The best way to be sure that 2017 is not 1934 is to act as though it were. We must learn and relearn that age’s necessary lessons: that meek submission is the most short-sighted of policies; that waiting for the other, more vulnerable group to protest first will only increase the isolation of us all. We must refuse to think that if we play nice and don’t make trouble, our group won’t be harmed. Calm but consistent opposition shared by a broad front of committed and constitutionally-minded protesters—it’s easy to say, fiendishly hard to do, and necessary to accomplish if we are to save the beautiful music of American democracy.”

The right sidebar contains useful links that may help you in this regard.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/15/preventing-2017-america-from-becoming-like-1934-germany-a-watchlist/feed/17Politics & Polls #26: Indivisible!http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/12/politics-polls-26-indivisible/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/12/politics-polls-26-indivisible/#commentsThu, 12 Jan 2017 15:03:05 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19314Since the election, Democrats have struggled with how to respond to a Donald Trump presidency. But one group is starting to get some traction – the authors of an online guide that is going viral: “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.”

In episode #26 of Politics & Polls, Julian Zelizer and I discuss Indivisible with two of its co-authors: Ezra Levin and Angel Padilla, former Democratic Congressional staffers. In 2010, they saw the impressive power of Tea Party activists as they swept through the halls of Congress. Ezra and Angel describe how those staffers occupied offices, yelled through mail slots, and even spat on one of them. They recommend that Democrats take a page from the Tea Party book – minus the spitting of course.

On the first day of the new Congress, the House Republican Conference reversed its proposed rules change, in which an independent ethics commission would have been weakened. However, a public onslaught of phone calls was able to stop the change.

Always remember: phone calls are most effective, far more than email. Look up your Congressman/woman here. Or call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to your Representative or Senator.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/house-ethics-rules-change-reversed-by-phone-calls/feed/12The “Indivisible” guide makes its national debuthttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/the-indivisible-guide-makes-its-national-debut/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/the-indivisible-guide-makes-its-national-debut/#commentsTue, 03 Jan 2017 13:29:24 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19293In today’s NYT, the Indivisible guide makes its national debut. Essential reading for the opening of the new Congress. Might help give Democrats some backbone that may need reinforcing.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/the-indivisible-guide-makes-its-national-debut/feed/5Polarization Removes the Ability to Make Distinctionshttp://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/polarization-removes-the-ability-to-make-distinctions/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/polarization-removes-the-ability-to-make-distinctions/#commentsTue, 03 Jan 2017 08:25:02 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19264Tweet
Bruce Springsteen has questioned Donald Trump’s competence to be president. His opinion is typical of the majority of Americans. How could voters have elected someone who is so widely seen as unready for the job? One answer is that polarization impairs the inclination of voters to act upon such problems.

In a Gallup poll released yesterday, about half of Americans expressed pessimism about Donald Trump’s readiness for the Presidency. This is a 30-point deterioration from the previous three presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Trump’s success in 2016 was made possible by partisan polarization. The net favorability of major candidates, whether winners or losers, has declined precipitously over the last sixty years.

It is amazing to think that Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney would attract such opprobrium. Stepping far back from partisan politics, their accomplishments and personal qualities are admirable. Yet by Gallup’s measure, candidates Clinton and Romney were seen as negatively as Barry Goldwater and George McGovern.

This phenomenon is closely related to the polarization that has gripped U.S. politics for the last several decades. Increasingly, voters see the opposition as totally unacceptable. Under such conditions, it becomes harder to detect genuine differences – or to act upon them. High negatives make crossover voting unthinkable.

Also, with such high negatives for both Clinton and Trump, many voters saw both candidates unfavorably, despite the fact that only one of the candidates (Trump) had his/her competence for office seriously questioned. Today, majorities of Americans do not express confidence in Trump’s ability to prevent major scandals, use military force wisely, or handle an international crisis. Trump’s extreme low scores in these domains are concerning for the coming year.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/03/polarization-removes-the-ability-to-make-distinctions/feed/5Ideas for the Press in 2017http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/ideas-for-the-press-in-2017-2/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/ideas-for-the-press-in-2017-2/#commentsSun, 01 Jan 2017 20:00:47 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19250For one of your first reads of the year, here are two excellent pieces by Jay Rosen, NYU journalism professor. In the first piece, he describes the negative prospects for the press in 2017 – many of which are somewhat self-inflicted. However, on the up side, he has a second piece. In it he lists actions that the press can take to do better in 2017. Even if you are not a journalist, please read these – and hold your favorite (or un-favorite) members of the press to these standards.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/ideas-for-the-press-in-2017-2/feed/3Happy New Year!http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/happy-new-year-2017/
http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/happy-new-year-2017/#commentsSun, 01 Jan 2017 06:26:11 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19246

Happy New Year, everyone! Tough year ahead – but there’s lots to do. Such clear challenges focus the mind.

What do you have planned for 2017? Not just about data or institutions.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2017/01/01/happy-new-year-2017/feed/5Constitutional Hardball: Can Senate Democrats Confirm Merrick Garland on January 3rd?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/25/constitutional-hardball-can-democrats-confirm-merrick-garland-on-january-3rd/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/25/constitutional-hardball-can-democrats-confirm-merrick-garland-on-january-3rd/#commentsMon, 26 Dec 2016 04:25:12 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19115On the New York Times opinion page, the editors suggest (“The Stolen Supreme Court Seat,” December 24th) that President-elect Donald Trump could nominate President Obama’s choice, Judge Merrick Garland, as a gesture of goodwill. I myself suggested this on CNN last month (that was the point, you guys, not the bug – go watch). This is unlikely, to say the least…but there’s still a long-shot way to get a vote on Garland on January 3rd. It involves playing Constitutional hardball.

Update: Good comment thread. One reader quotes a former Republican Senate staffer who says that the rules prevent this. I am somewhat skeptical of the source. But if objections are raised to this aggressive approach to overcoming the GOP blockade, they will surely take the form described. Other readers give counterarguments.

In 2004, the legal scholar Mark Tushnet published a classic article called “Constitutional Hardball.” This article is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the battles over how our national government works. In it, Tushnet points out that from time to time, an organized effort is made to change fundamental principles of how the branches of the U.S. government operate. In Constitutional hardball, the parties carry out maneuvers that are within the literal rules, yet violate longstanding principles that are followed by mutual consent, a.k.a. “norms.” As examples, Tushnet cites (1) Marbury v. Madison, (2) FDR and the New Deal, and (3) a period that began in the late 1990s and continues today. This last period coincides with the advent of our modern, polarized politics.

The ninth-seat vacancy on the Supreme Court – and twenty-five other languishing judicial nominations – exemplify this year’s round of hardball. Usually, Supreme Court vacancies don’t arise in the last year of a Presidency, because sitting Justices avoid retiring in such a year. But nobody chose for Justice Scalia to pass on when he did. Senate Republicans declined to take up Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, leaving the Court with only eight justices for much of the last year. They cited a tradition of not considering Supreme Court nominees in the last year of a Presidency, but that “tradition” arises from retirement practices, not a principle of Senate function.

Progressive strategist David Waldman points out that Senate Democrats have an option for escalating this game of hardball. Waldman is no stranger to this kind of thinking: in 2013, he pushed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to adopt the “nuclear option” for judicial nominations. This is now called the Reid Rule.

Waldman points out that at noon on January 3rd, 34 senators leave office. At that point, Democrats will have a 36-30 majority – which constitutes a quorum. And the Senate filibuster rule might not carry over from the previous Senate. Waldman suggests that at this moment, the presiding officer, Vice-President Joe Biden, could recognize the top-ranking Democrat, Senator Richard Durbin, who could then nominate Judge Garland for a vote. Waldman has started a petition requesting that they do this.

This idea faces multiple hurdles. For one thing, the Senate parliamentarian would have to agree that the filibuster rule did not carry over from the previous Congress. That would be in keeping with the “dead hand” principle that a Senate should not be bound by previous Senate bodies. It is not clear that a move to vote on Garland would clear such a hurdle.

A bigger hurdle is whether Democrats have the boldness to attempt such a move. To some extent, party members adopt their tone from their leaders. Senate Democrats might have to push back on President Obama, who has made it clear that he seeks to make an orderly transition to the Trump Administration. But the roughness of the Presidential transition may give him second thoughts. Democrats may be bolstered by the fact that Obama’s net approval is quite high, while Trump’s net approval rating is the lowest of any incoming President on record.

Has there been a presidential transition as absolutely chaos-filled and shambolic as this one? Am I just not remembering past shambles?

I hope you all have a good holiday wherever you are. Above, a song in memory of the Red Army Choir.

My original post featured the Morehouse Men’s Choir. Not seasonal, but it seems appropriate.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/25/happy-hannukah-merry-christmas/feed/1Politics & Polls #25: What does the Declaration of Independence say about limited government?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/22/politics-polls-25-what-does-the-declaration-of-independence-actually-say-about-government/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/22/politics-polls-25-what-does-the-declaration-of-independence-actually-say-about-government/#commentsFri, 23 Dec 2016 02:01:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19161Sometimes the Declaration of Independence is hauled out as an argument for limited government. But historian Steve Pincus points out that the Declaration was actually a complaint that the government should do more to promote and protect citizens’ welfare. Blew my mind. Julian Zelizer and I interviewed him about his new book: “Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government.”Link:http://bit.ly/PoliticsAndPolls25
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/22/politics-polls-25-what-does-the-declaration-of-independence-actually-say-about-government/feed/1Indivisiblehttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/indivisible/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/indivisible/#respondThu, 22 Dec 2016 03:58:33 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19144Recently, some progressive Congressional staffers wrote Indivisible, their guide for resisting the Trump agenda. The guide went viral. Now they have a website, https://www.indivisibleguide.com/. A current version of the guide is here.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/indivisible/feed/0What Actions are Shared to All Fascist Movements?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/what-actions-are-shared-to-all-fascist-movements/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/what-actions-are-shared-to-all-fascist-movements/#commentsWed, 21 Dec 2016 20:17:03 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19124Today’s leisure reading is Robert Paxton’s essay The Five Stages of Fascism (downloadable PDF). It’s a followup to my previous post on Umberto Eco’s essay on fascism.

According to Paxton (link to biography), even though fascist movements had varying stated goals, the shared elements lay in what they actually did.

He lists the following five steps. The links go to events in 2016 that approximate Paxton’s steps.

Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor;

Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power;

Exercise of power, where the movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates; and

Radicalization or entropy, where the state either becomes increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional authoritarian rule, as did Fascist Italy.

He also says that only Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy progressed through all five of these stages.

An argument can be made that in its own way, filtered through its election mechanisms, the U.S. is approximately at stage 3 of this process. Starting decades ago, a radical wing of the Republican Party went through step 2. This wing coalesced in fall 2016, early in the primary season. If you are among those who agree with this, then the next question for you is how to slow or prevent the fourth step.

Update: Paxton himself thinks it is a stretch to call Trump’s movement fascist. Instead, he suggests that “self-indulgent demagoguery on behalf of oligarchy” would be more accurate, though less catchy:

Donald Trump is a special case altogether. Superficially, he seems to have borrowed a number of fascist themes for his presidential campaign: xenophobia, racial prejudice, fear of national weakness and decline, aggressiveness in foreign policy, a readiness to suspend the rule of law to deal with supposed emergencies. His hectoring tone, mastery of crowds, and the skill with which he uses the latest communications technologies also are reminiscent of Mussolini and Hitler.

And yet these qualities are at most derivative of fascist themes and styles; the underlying ideological substance is very different, with the entitlements of wealth playing a greater role than fascist regimes generally tolerated. Trump’s embrace of these themes and styles is most likely a matter of tactical expediency – a decision taken with little or no thought about their ugly history. Trump is evidently altogether insensitive to the echoes his words and oratorical style evoke, which should not be surprising, given his apparent insensitivity to the impact of every other insult that he hurls.

It seems to me that by Paxton’s own reasoning, it’s too early to make a judgment, since we have not had enough time to see the actions of a Trump Administration. But I take his point that style and actions are different, and one should not be led astray. As commenter Emigre suggests, “we will know whether a Stage 4 is imminent when the military and police follow the lead of the Border Patrol Agents and align their interests with those of Trump and his allies.”

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/21/what-actions-are-shared-to-all-fascist-movements/feed/23What data got right in 2016 – and what’s ahead for PEChttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/20/defenses-of-institutionalism-and-the-year-ahead/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/20/defenses-of-institutionalism-and-the-year-ahead/#commentsTue, 20 Dec 2016 19:25:02 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=19052Harry Enten points out that areas surrounding Ivy League schools voted predominantly for Clinton. He concludes that these are bubbles. I think there is something more in these numbers.

Undeniably, academics tilt liberal, as do the communities they live in. However, additional forces were at work in 2016. White college-educated voters swung away from the Republican Presidential nominee, by double-digit percentages. The numbers above reflect that. In addition, think of the fact that elite universities are institution-oriented. That is, they favor the existing order: meritocracy, a rule-based society, and governmental/private organizations that remain stable over time. Those values are conservative – but they also cross party lines.

If you think Ivy League students are living in a cultural/political bubble… You are exactly right. All are in 80%-90% Clinton areas. pic.twitter.com/cJouWh9VcG

This year, the Republican nominee promised to upend that order. His personal actions, and those of advisers such as Stephen Bannon and Michael Flynn, do not count as conservative by any usual definition. Today, conservative columnist Michael Gerson points out that while the Republican Party is at its zenith, conservatism is at a low:

…what is the proper conservative response? It is to live within the boundaries of law and reality. There is no certain way to determine if Russian influence was decisive. And no serious constitutional recourse seems to remain. While open to other options, I see none. It will now fall to citizens and institutions to (1) defend the legislature and judiciary from any encroachment, (2) defend every group of people from organized oppression, including Muslims and refugees, (3) expand and defend the institutions — from think tanks to civil liberty organizations — that make the case for a politics that honors human dignity. And pray for the grass to grow.

Indeed, signs of instability to democracy have been brewing in multiple Western nations, as documented by Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk (original article PDF here). In addition to conservative voices, liberal voices have also pointed out the risk; see this essay by Paul Krugman, “How Republics End.”

>>>

Usually, PEC would close down after the election for two years. But this year I’ve heard from many of you about your continued appetite for data-based analysis. More than ever, data is necessary to understand public life. Here are some examples of what we learned this year:

Data showed us Trump’s strength in the primaries in January. They showed us Clinton’s inevitability in her party’s primaries as well.

That is just the analysis done here – there was also much excellent work done at FiveThirtyEight and The Upshot.

The failure was in the general election – and even there, polls told us clearly about just how close the race was. The mistake was mine, in July: when I set up the model, my estimate of the home-stretch correlated error (also known as the systematic uncertainty) was too low. To be honest, it seemed like a minor parameter at the time. But in the final weeks, this parameter became important.

The estimate of uncertainty was the major difference between PEC, FiveThirtyEight, and others. Drew Linzer has explained very nicely how a win probability can vary quite a bit, even when the percentage margin is exactly the same (to see this point as a graph, see the diagram). At the Princeton Election Consortium, I estimated the Election-Eve correlated error as being less than a percentage point. At FiveThirtyEight, their uncertainty corresponded to about four percentage points. But we both had very similar Clinton-Trump margins – as did all aggregators.

For this reason, it seems better to get away from probabilities. When pre-election state polls show a race that is within two percentage points, that point is obscured by talk of probabilities. Saying “a lead of two percentage points, plus or minus two percentage points” immediately captures the uncertainty.

Even a hedged estimate like FiveThirtyEight’s has problems, because it is ingrained in people to read percentage points as being in units of votes. Silver, Enten, and others have taken an undeserved shellacking from people who don’t understand that a ~70% probability is not certain at all. Next time around, I won’t focus on probabilities – instead I will focus on estimated margins – as well as an assessment of which states are the best places for individuals to make efforts. This won’t be as appealing to horserace-oriented readers, but it will be better for those of you who are actively engaged.

>>>

State polls aren’t the only thing that failed. On a larger scale, journalists failed to see the Trump phenomenon coming, and did not take him seriously as a disruptive force. Now the failure takes a new form: an inability to see that if false statements compete on equal ground with truth, the rules have changed. Nowhere is this better evidenced than by this photograph of an off-the-record feasting-and-ritual-humiliation.

As CNN’s Brian Stelter has written, this pairs oddly with Trump’s continued assault on the media. Columbia Journalism Review’s Kyle Pope has written that a “new aggressiveness” is needed when covering politics. Contrary to the coziness shown in the photograph, now seems like a time to redouble the use of fact-based discussion – and to call out inaccuracy.

>>>

This all leads to a question of what to do in the months ahead. The risk to institutions does not allow the luxury of waiting for two years. I plan to use the Princeton Election Consortium as a forum for data analytics in the public interest. The general goals are to understand where we are today, and to identify ways in which individual efforts matter, not in 2020, not in 2018, but right now. For examples, see the right sidebar, which lists some ideas.

I’m looking for partners in this endeavor. All are welcome, and all political persuasions. One common theme is that quantitative analysis and facts will serve as a starting point. Sometimes we will focus on norms of society and government, though that is a domain where external expertise would be helpful.

I hope students and colleagues will be part of this effort. Postings will be less regular than during the election season, but we still aim to bring you good work. I hope you will stay with the Princeton Election Consortium.

Readers, recall that my main purpose in running this site was not simply to aggregate polls. I also wanted to help direct efforts and resources. Presidential polls were off (watch my entomophagy, which I made as substantive as I could), but the top six Senate races split 2-to-4, which is about right.

Now, with democratic institutions under threat, the question is: what can everyday citizens do? Recently, former Congressional staffers have prepared an excellent divide, titled Indivisible. It’s very popular! I provide a downloaded PDF here Read it, print it, save it. Also, here is a story on how the document came to be.

In addition, I offer three ideas, whose impacts range from long-term to immediate. These are meant for all Americans who want to save institutions – whether they are liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican.

1. Join your Representative’s party. This can be a tough one to do mentally, but it can potentially pay off.

David Wasserman at Cook Political Report/FiveThirtyEight points out a major problem in our democracy: most districts are not competitive. Mostly because of population clustering, with an additional boost from gerrymandering, like-minded people are clustered within legislative districts. And when districts are lopsided in their partisan makeup, the only competitive legislative election is the primary.

In both parties, representatives will face pressures to cave, if and when our institutions come under threat. Since most general elections carry no suspense, I suggest that you put your effort where you have the most leverage: the primary. In most states, advance party registration is necessary to vote in the primary. This has a consequence: to influence your representative, you must register to his/her party. That may mean changing parties! It sounds tough, but think about it. The Republican Party in particular needs to be brought back from its Trumpist death spiral.

Such logic also applies to both Republicans and Democrats. However, the risks with Democrats are different because (a) they’re not in power, and (b) they’re not putting institutions at risk. Either way, maximize your influence by registering to the dominant local party.

2. Contact your local and state officials. When an offense to institutions occurs, contact your local and state officials. Because they have fewer constituents, they are more likely to be responsive. This is especially important if you think your representative is swayable, or if he/she is a mismatch to the state partisan leaning. An example would be Governor Larry Hogan (R) of Maryland, which is heavily Democratic. Although Hogan was not a Trump supporter, he was rather silent during the campaign. Silence in the face of constitutional violations is not a sufficient response. Encourage such people to be vocal.

3. Keep the media on task. A free press is one of our remaining defenses. But news organizations face many pitfalls, including:

You can help by contacting editors, writers, and producers to give them feedback. Keep it friendly. Here are contacts for the NYT. Looking for contacts for AP, ABC, NBC, CBS, WSJ. Here’s an example of a success.

The Times properly uses the F-word in a headline reporting a Trump statement. Other news orgs should take note. pic.twitter.com/WbPkmVqLIz

Please give input and suggestions in the comments section, which is my favorite part of PEC.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/16/action-items-for-democracys-survival/feed/12The Comey effecthttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/#commentsSun, 11 Dec 2016 03:06:34 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18959September 18, 2017: Re-upping it again because of that claim over at The Monkey Cage to the contrary. Nothing new to add, except that it is always possible to cast doubt on a fairly obvious claim if you use a method that makes your error bars large.

May 9th, 2017: I am re-upping this because of the recent column by Nate Silver on this topic. He had previously addressed the topic of Comey, shortly after the election. I thought he did a good job, both then and now.

I don’t entirely see the need to revisit the topic, which I regard as settled. To me, the other critique in the news illustrates the inadequacy of smoothing methods to forensically extract rapid changes like the Comey effect.

A month after Trump’s upset victory, the aftermath is still sending shocks through the United States and the world. In addition to a hard rightward move on policy, Trump, Pence, and Company appear to be bent on uprooting many institutions. The risk to the American system of government and life has been noted by both liberals and conservatives.

Hillary Clinton’s narrow loss to Donald Trump was influenced by many causes in the home stretch: complacency driven by conventional wisdom and polls (and yes, poll aggregation), which led to the media assumption that she would win, which in turn was a likely driver of the tone of coverage. And of course there is so much to say about the candidates themselves.

In mid-October, I said I didn’t think Trump would clear 240 electoral votes, a statement I paid for later by eating a bug on CNN. My error seems to be accounted for by two events: (1) undecided Republican voters coming home, and (2) FBI Director Jim Comey’s letter to Congress about Clinton’s email.

From opinion data alone, it is possible to estimate when a change occurred. This can test between alternative explanations, which include not only the Comey letter (October 28th) but preceding events such as the announcement a hike in Affordable Care Act premiums (October 24th). However, it is not possible to see the shift using the averaging methods used by other aggregators. They tend to smear results out over time. For example, the Huffington Post does not allow a sudden shift to be seen.

I calculated a day-by-day margin using polling data from the Huffington Post. These polls were done on multiple days, which I converted to individual dates using the following procedure:

For each survey, entered the Clinton-Trump margin across all dates covered by the survey sample;

Calculated the median Clinton-Trump margin by date;

Shifted the time axis by 3 days, to correct for the fact that each survey also covered earlier and later dates.*

The above graph shows the result. After the Affordable Care Act premium hike announcement, opinion did not move for days, arguing against this as a main driver of the late swing in opinion. It could still be a factor, as is the case for many events. But such an effect would have to be gradual.

However, the big change does coincide well with the release of the Comey letter. Opinion swung toward Trump by 4 percentage points, and about half of this was a lasting change. This was larger than the victory margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin. Many factors went into this year’s Presidental race, but on the home stretch, Comey’s letter appears to have been a critical factor in the home stretch.

*Based on reader feedback and some correspondence with Marcy Wheeler, this post has been modified. The original version is here. The graph is the same, it’s just shifted by three days to avoid “time travel,” in which the effect appeared to show up before the cause. This is a bit of a kludge: a fixed-interval correction is not possible because each survey was done over a different time period. A better alternative would be to calculate medians using only the final sampling date. I’ll try that out later – traveling at a conference now.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/feed/47Politics & Polls #23 with Jamelle Bouie on the Democrats’ Responsehttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/08/politics-polls-23-with-jamelle-bouie-on-the-democrats-response/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/08/politics-polls-23-with-jamelle-bouie-on-the-democrats-response/#commentsThu, 08 Dec 2016 14:26:25 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18956Since Donald Trump’s election, there has been considerable debate about what the Democratic party should do next. While some Democrats argue for an openness to cooperation, others insist there isn’t room for compromise given Trump’s views on race and individual rights. In this episode of Politics & Polls, professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang interview one of the most powerful voices in this debate: Jamelle Bouie.

In his writing, Bouie — who serves as Slate’s chief political correspondent — has tackled a host of issues from white nationalism to minority voters to Trump’s vision of Black America. His work has appeared either online or in print at The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Nation and other publications. He also serves as a political analyst for CBS News.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/08/politics-polls-23-with-jamelle-bouie-on-the-democrats-response/feed/5Politics & Polls #22 with Linda Greenhouse: How will a Trump Presidency affect the Supreme Court?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/04/politics-polls-22-with-linda-greenhouse-how-will-a-trump-presidency-affect-the-supreme-court/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/04/politics-polls-22-with-linda-greenhouse-how-will-a-trump-presidency-affect-the-supreme-court/#commentsSun, 04 Dec 2016 20:26:40 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18949A new episode of Politics & Polls: How will a Trump Presidency affect the Supreme Court? And how soon? Julian Zelizer and I talk it over with veteran Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse. Listen!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/04/politics-polls-22-with-linda-greenhouse-how-will-a-trump-presidency-affect-the-supreme-court/feed/6Princeton Events – What Happened In The Election?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/26/princeton-events-what-happened/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/26/princeton-events-what-happened/#commentsSat, 26 Nov 2016 19:27:32 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18927This week at Princeton, I’ll be at two events to discuss what happened in the election, and the uncertain road ahead. Both are open to the public.

Monday November 28th, at 7:00pm. At the Princeton Public Library, I’ll join a panel moderated by Stan Katz, and featuring Ruth Mandel and Charles Stile.

Thursday December 1st, at 6:00pm. In McCosh Hall room 50 on the Princeton University campus, I sit down with Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent of Slate magazine. Bouie has written remarkable pieces about the Trump campaign and its relationship to race and politics in America. Here’s one. I look forward to a great discussion.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/26/princeton-events-what-happened/feed/12Helping the New Gerrymandering Standard Survive in the Supreme Courthttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/24/a-lower-court-win-on-partisan-gerrymandering/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/24/a-lower-court-win-on-partisan-gerrymandering/#commentsFri, 25 Nov 2016 03:20:49 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18842Tweet
Thanksgiving brings the nation a win for fair representation, in the form of a way to deal with partisan gerrymandering. A three-judge court ruled that the Wisconsin state legislative map is a partisan gerrymander: a map drawn to favor one major political party over the other (decision: Whitford Op. and Order, Dkt. 166, Nov. 21, 2016). The court applied a mathematical standard created by Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee, the “efficiency gap.” The case is now headed for consideration by the Supreme Court.

If this standard, or another that addresses the same need, is adopted widely, it would resolve a major gap in election law. This is an important case: In this year’s House elections, Democrats would have had to win the popular vote by at least 9 percentage points to take control. That is the largest partisan asymmetry on record. It would be reduced considerably if districting were done according to principles that treated both parties equally.

Let me outline the state of play and some potential weaknesses in the proposed standard. As an additional approach, I have developed two standards, based on longstanding statistical practice, which could help overcome skepticism by the Supreme Court. My standards can be calculated automatically at gerrymander.princeton.edu, and are described in detail in the Stanford Law Review.

The current state of play on the partisan-gerryrmandering issue is as follows:

Partisan gerrymanders are considered justiciable, which means that courts are empowered to strike them down. (Davis v. Bandemer, 1986)

Supreme Court justices have not come to agreement on a manageable standard which could be applied in general.

A majority of the current Supreme Court has expressed interest in the idea of partisan symmetry, loosely defined as the idea that if the parties switched statewide vote totals, they would also switch seat totals. (LULAC v. Perry, 2006)

Any solution must fit within a large body of existing law. Here are a few principles that have been considered but rejected:

Odd shapes of districts are considered insufficient evidence. Indeed, sometimes odd shapes are needed to connect communities of interest, or to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Generally speaking, single-district gerrymanders are not justiciable, except on grounds of race.

It is insufficient to point out that a minority of votes could elect a majority of representatives. Such an event can occur by chance.

Sub-proportional representation is also out, e.g, 40% of votes giving less than 40% of seats. Winner-take-all systems generally do not produce such an outcome.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is necessary* for a five-vote majority for a possible gerrymandering standard, says that partisan gerrymanders are justiciable under the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection) and the First Amendment (freedom of association). So the legal underpinnings are there for a standard to be adopted.

To me, “manageable” suggests that a judge should be able to apply the standard without too much help from expert witnesses. There is nothing wrong with expert witnesses. But this is a Constitutional question, and a judge might not want to outsource the critical thinking.

For example, one could take the approach of drawing thousands of possible maps, and make a statistical argument from the results. But to do this, experts have to start with some set of districting standards, which implicitly contain priorities that do not reflect the give-and-take of the legislative process or of requirements such as satisfying the Voting Rights Act or joining communities of interest. In short, redistricting is not a game of chance. A randomly-generated process only reveals the range of outcomes that are possible, not what is desirable. So this is shaky ground.

Now let’s turn to the standard used in the Wisconsin case. It revolves around the key principle that partisan gerrymandering must consider the statewide map as a whole. This is likely to be the basis for any successful standard.

In particular, here is the basic concept of the efficiency gap: Look at the statewide pattern of results. When one party gets just enough votes to win its races by tiny margins, it has used its votes efficiently. If a party’s wins are large, then votes have been wasted. If the two major parties differ in their total number of wasted votes, that is an efficiency gap.

Skipping over the details of Stephanopoulos and McGhee’s assumptions, they define the efficiency gap in a way that is equivalent to the following formula (see footnote 88 of the Wisconsin decision):

efficiency gap = S – 0.5 – 2*(V – 0.5) = S – 2*V + 0.5

where S is the party’s seat share and V is the party’s vote share. Any point on the blue diagonal of the following plot has an efficiency gap of zero percent:

I have plotted Wisconsin elections from 2010 to 2016.The vertical distance between each data point and the blue diagonal is the efficiency gap. The points are approximately lined up from left to right, which means that across a wide range of outcomes, Democrats are held to a similar number of seats, less than 40 out of 99 total. In this way, Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly is protected from changes in the will of voters.

The efficiency gap works because the diagonal line is close to where the relationship between seats and votes has been observed to fall historically, based on decades of elections in winner-take-all systems worldwide. (It is possible to derive the exact votes-to-seats relationship from basic mathematical principles. Today I will skip that.)

Despite its virtues, the efficiency gap has some weak points.

It relies on “wasted votes,” a phrase that may rankle a judge. I can imagine Justice Alito or Roberts asking: how can a legitimately-cast vote be said to be “wasted”? There are other details of the mathematical argument that could be examined, though I do not think the judges will drill into them beyond what I have said above.

A critical justice could call the blue diagonal a form of enforced proportionality – treif. It’s not proportionality, exactly – but it could be argued that the efficiency gap establishes a norm of what level of representation is appropriate. If the Supremes don’t like such a baldly stated standard, they might instead want to see a definition of asymmetry that does not explicitly recommend a specific number of seats.

In some years the efficiency gap almost goes away. See the data point for 2014, during which Republicans won by fat margins in Wisconsin, and “wasted” as many votes as Democrats, giving a very small efficiency gap. So the Wisconsin gerrymander “wastes” more votes in some years than others. If the measure of gerrymandering is the efficiency gap, why not just wait until the next election, when it may very well shrink?

>>>

Older, simpler statistical tests might possibly resolve these difficulties. Here are two tests for gerrymandering based on textbook principles established nearly 100 years ago.

1. The mean-median difference. As I wrote in the New York Times, a partisan advantage in a closely-divided state is revealed by the fact that the median (i.e. the middle value) is different from the mean (i.e. the average). When these two numbers are far apart, there is an advantage to whichever party is favored by the median. And the statistical properties of the mean-median difference were discovered decades ago.

Wisconsin redistricting came under single-party control by Republicans for the post-2010 redistricting cycle. Previous rounds of redistricting were done by court order after failure of the two parties to come to agreement on a map. From 1984 to 2000, the mean-median difference was an average of 0.1% toward Republicans – basically zero. From 2002 to 2010, the mean-median difference averaged 3.5% toward Republicans. In the 2012/2014/2016 elections, the mean-median difference averaged 6.4% toward Republicans. This is a large difference, comparable to the most extreme Congressional gerrymanders in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Note that the mean-median difference varies considerably less than the efficiency gap from year to year, and is a good measure of partisan asymmetry even in years like 2010 and 2014, when the efficiency gap was low. This is because any structural gap between the mean and the median is likely to persist, even if one party is lifted by a wave of popular support.

2. Are individual district wins more lopsided for one party than the other? The core strategy of partisan gerrymandering is to pack opponents into a few districts for lopsided wins, while spreading one’s own voters more thinly. We can just ask whether statistically, Democratic and Republican win margins are different. This can be done using the two-sample t-test, probably “the most widely used statistical test of all time.”
The p-values give the probability (one-tailed) that Republicans would have gained this advantage under chance conditions. The advantage arose suddenly in 2012, too fast to be explained by slow trends such as the accumulation of Democrats in high-density population centers.

As a technical note, Wisconsin does present special problems for statistical analysis. In 2016, nearly half of Assembly races were uncontested in Wisconsin. For doing statistical analysis, something has to be done to estimate voter preference in such districts. These details are discussed in my Stanford Law Review** and my Election Law Journalarticle; they usually do not have a major effect on the outcomes of the tests.

Overall, I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will at least give this issue a fair hearing. There are two similar cases brewing, one in Maryland, where Democrats perpetrated the gerrymander; and one in North Carolina, where Republicans are the culprits. Within the coming 12 months, we may know whether or not partisan gerrymandering will be allowed in post-2020 redistricting.

*I am assuming that whoever is appointed to the vacancy on the Supreme Court will vote as Scalia did, against the justiciability of partisan gerrymanders. In LULAC, Scalia opined that it was time to give up looking for a clear standard. Will the standards described here win out over the new justice’s likely political preference? I am skeptical, but then again this issue may seem like a technical one rather than a more emotional one such as voting rights. In my view, it is at least as consequential. I note that the Maryland case brings all motivations into alignment.

**The SLR article also gives a third test, one that uses computer simulation to calculate how many seats were ill-gained. However, that is best applied to House redistricting schemes. It has one notable virtue: it can take into account the natural advantages that come from population clustering. If you want to try it out, it is available at gerrymander.princeton.edu.

Despite the importance of understanding this week’s cataclysmic events, I have been slow to write. There are other demands, especially my annual national scientific conference, which begins tomorrow.

The question of what went wrong in polls – and where I went additionally wrong – is an important one. I owe you a serious assessment, but it is not a topic to write about quickly.

This is a wrenching time in national politics. Most supporters of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were surprised by the outcome. As Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight points out, voters were more partisan than ever, with amazing party loyalty. Despite the few key upsets in close Rust Belt races, voting patterns are nearly identical to 2012. The state-by-state correlation between Romney-Obama and Trump-Clinton is +0.95 – right in line with post-Gingrich polarization.The parties are now fighting over mobilizing and turning out their own voter demographics.

In Politics & Polls #20, Julian Zelizer and I react to the results in episode #20, our first post-election recording. Among a host of issues, we discuss why the polls might’ve been off and what a Trump presidency means for the nation and possible implications for our democracy. Listen.

Going into today’s election, many races appeared to be very close: 12 state-level Presidential races were within five percentage points. But the polls were off, massively. And so we face the likelihood of an electoral win by Donald Trump. At the same time, Hillary Clinton appears likely to win the popular vote. The Upshot’s model currently projects a Clinton lead of more than 1 percentage point. If that lead lasts, it means that more American voters preferred her to Trump.

At the moment, the NYT is projecting Trump leads of less than 1 percentage point in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Even without these states, Trump has at least 268 electoral votes (depending on some districts in Maine and Nebraska). We will see in the morning how these last few states and districts will be resolved.

In addition to the enormous polling error, I did not correctly estimate the size of the correlated error (also known as the systematic error) by a factor of five. As I wrote before, that five-fold difference accounted for the difference between the 99% probability here and the lower probabilities at other sites. We all estimated the Clinton win at being probable, but I was most extreme. It goes to show that even if the estimation problem is reduced to one parameter, it’s still essential to do a good job with that one parameter. Polls failed, and I amplified that failure.

This election is about to create shock waves that will make the last year of campaigning look mild. We are about to see both houses of Congress under Republican control, quite possibly with a President Donald Trump. This comes in the face of a reasonably growing economy and a popular Democratic President about to exit the White House. It is difficult to reconcile these different facts.

Thinkpieces that have been written in the last few weeks have to be re-examined in a new light. Ezra Klein at Vox has written about the weakness in U.S. democracy, in which a weak Republican Party could nominate Trump, and partisan polarization gave him a shot at the Presidency. This one-two punch appears to have landed, hard. I was correct in documenting Trump’s rise in the primaries, an easier task for polling analysis because there, his lead was considerable.

I have written about the role of partisan polarization in getting voters to choose up sides, to the exclusion of even considering a vote for the other side. The chickens have now come home to roost. Exit polls showed that most voters felt that Trump lacked the temperament to be President, and that Clinton was seen as more qualified. Yet Trump seems to have rallied enough support to get overcome these factors. All Presidential nominees have had lower and lower approval ratings, and Clinton was no exception to the pattern.

Now we see where that long trend has led. One consequence is that more voters refused to support either major candidate. Neither Trump nor Clinton is headed for winning a majority of voters in Pennyslvania or Michigan. In Pennsylvania, the NYT projects that over 3% of voters cast their ballots for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. In Michigan, the minor-party total was over 4%. In both cases, these numbers are considerably greater than the Trump-Clinton margin.

The coming years will be disruptive ones, to say the least. Whether you are Democrat, Republican, or neither, it’s going to be a challenging time ahead. It’s Donald Trump’s Republican Party, and maybe his Presidency too. The nation belongs to all of us. Good night.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/09/aftermath/feed/291Election thread #2http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/08/election-thread-2/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/08/election-thread-2/#commentsWed, 09 Nov 2016 02:34:55 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=1876511:44pm: The business about 65%, 91%, 93%, 99% probability is not the main point. The entire polling industry – public, campaign-associated, aggregators – ended up with data that missed tonight’s results by a very large margin. There is now the question of understanding how a mature industry could have gone so wrong. And of course, most of all, there is the shock of a likely Trump presidency. I apologize that I underestimated the possibility of such an event.

I agree w/@NateSilver538 that there was high uncertainty, much more than I assumed. Median polling error 4% Presidential, 6% Senate so far.

11:12pm: Using the projections of the NY Times, Donald Trump is outperforming his pre-election polling margins by a median of 4.0 +/- 2.6 percentage points (the 8 states in the Geek’s Guide). In Senate races, Republicans are outperforming by 6.0 +/- 3.7 percentage points. A five-percentage-point polling miss would be a tremendous error by modern polling standards. Undecided or minor-party voters coming home to Trump? Shy Trump voters? I don’t know.

GOP polls weren’t predicting this night either. Senate, House, Gov sources I talked to all expected Clinton would win per their polls

10:38pm: At the Senate level, the polling error is looking pretty substantial at the moment, maybe 5 points toward Republicans. A polling error of this size would be the largest on record, at least in a Presidential year. I was wrong to downplay this possibility.

We still have to see what will happen at the top of the ticket. But obviously, with a Meta-Margin of only 2.2%, an equally large across-the-board polling error at the Presidential level would suggest a Trump win of the Electoral College.

9:09pm: The NYTimes Senate projected margins are running several percentage points more Republican than pre-election polls.

9:04pm: Here are some negative signs for Democrats: Trump’s ahead in Florida, overperforming his polls by several percentage points. Also, NH and PA Senate races leaning R at the NYTimes tracker.

I note that the generic House ballot swung toward Republicans by several points in the closing weeks, to D+1%. That is another piece of data suggesting that the GOP might overperform their polls. Definitely some mixed signals tonight.

8:43pm: Oh, this is awesome: the NY Times projection tool. So much better than TV. For now, it looks like control may come down to the New Hampshire and Pennsylvania Senate races. If Republicans take one of those, then they are likely to retain control.

8:31pm: Todd Young (R) wins IN-Sen. Not unexpected, but that’s one close race for the GOP.

8:25pm: According to you, television watching options:

Red Skelton special is coming up

Showtime: Stephen Colbert election night special

Pop: the movie Dave

El Rey: Twilight Zone marathon

8:18pm: Don’t ask me about any race closer than two percentage points. All comments on this topic will be deleted until 10:00pm!

8:13pm: I’m unaware of any advance indications of Trump overperformance. On the contrary, we have: (a) early voting neutral or more Democratic than 2012; (b) massive Latino voting; and (c) high turnout. If I had to guess, I’d say any error will favor Clinton.

8:04pm: Do yourselves a favor and turn off the TV coverage – it is basically worse than pre-election polling until 10:00pm. My friends here want to watch it though. Any suggestions of other TV stuff that is fun tonight?

8:00pm: Here’s something cool: an electoral-vote tracker from reader Ben Reich. Just fill in the cells in row 4 with “C” or “T”. It automatically calculates the electoral totals, and updates the paths to victory for Clinton or Trump. No map update, sorry! For that, use 270towin.com.

6:30pm: Here is Slate’s VoteCastr tool for forecasting state totals based on partial information. I’m a bit suspicious, but it’s certainly not worse than live news, which is basically worthless for the next 2-3 hours. Or follow real counts at the New York Times.

Here are the final snapshots. Four Senate races are within one percentage point: Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Partisans there may want to lawyer up for possible recount battles.

Soon I’ll put out a brief Geek’s Guide to the Election. Also, live blogging starting around 8:00 pm.

>>>

President: Hillary Clinton (D).

The Presidential estimates are based on the current snapshot in the right sidebar, except for the most-probable-single-outcome map, where variance minimization was done to give a more stable snapshot for North Carolina, Clinton +1.0 ± 1.0% (N=8 polls).

Most probable single outcome (shown on map below): Clinton 323 EV, Trump 215 EV. This is also the mode of the NC-adjusted histogram.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/08/final-mode-projections-clinton-323-ev-51-di-senate-seats-gop-house/feed/168Today on The Takeaway: The Home Stretchhttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/07/today-on-the-takeaway-the-home-stretch/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/07/today-on-the-takeaway-the-home-stretch/#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2016 13:33:31 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18619Today on The Takeaway with host John Hockenberry: How certain is the Presidential race? What about the Senate? Who picks the bug? The show airs nationwide at various times starting at 9:00am Eastern (I’m scheduled at 30-40 minutes after the hour). Find a radio station near you, stream at thetakeaway.org, or listen to the segment here.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/07/today-on-the-takeaway-the-home-stretch/feed/83All estimates point toward HRC>50% probability. What determines the exact number?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable_probability/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable_probability/#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2016 04:31:06 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18522Three sets of data point in the same direction:

The state poll-based Meta-Margin is Clinton +2.6%.

National polls give a median of Clinton +3.0 +/- 0.9% (10 polls with a start date of November 1st or later).

Early voting patterns approximately match 2012, a year when the popular vote was Obama +3.9%.

Based on this evidence, if Hillary Clinton does not win on Tuesday it will be a giant surprise.

There’s been buzz about the Princeton Election Consortium’s win probability for Clinton, which for some time has been in the 98-99% range. Tonight let me walk everyone through how we arrive at this level of confidence. tl;dr: With a more conservative assumption (see discussion) the PEC approach gives a probability of more like 95%. I will also give a caveat on how it is difficult to estimate win probabilities above 90% – and why fine adjustments at this level might not matter for my goals in running this site.

An obvious contrast with PEC’s calculation is the FiveThirtyEight win probability, which has been in the 60-70% range. As a prominent outlier this season, FiveThirtyEight has come under fire for their lack of certainty. Its founder, Nate Silver, has fired back.

Let me start by pointing out that FiveThirtyEight and the Princeton Election Consortium have different goals. One site has the goal of being correct in an academic sense, i.e. mulling over many alternatives and discussing them. The other site is driven by these factors, but in addition by monetary and resource considerations. However, which is which? It’s opposite to what you may think.

Several weeks ago I visited a major investment company to talk about election forecasting. Many people there had strong backgrounds in math, computer science, and physics. They were highly engaged in the Princeton Election Consortium’s math and were full of questions. I suddenly realized that we did the same thing: estimate the probability of real-world events, and find ways to beat the “market.”

In the case of PEC, the “market” is conventional wisdom about whether a race is in doubt. If a race is a certain win or a certain loss, it is pointless to put in money and effort, assuming that the rest of the market is in the game. On the other hand, if a race is in doubt, then it may be moved by a little extra push. Think of it as “math for activism.” This point of view heavily influences my calculations.

>>>

Now think about the FiveThirtyEight approach. I don’t want to get into too much detail. Although they discuss their model a lot, to my knowledge they have not revealed the dozens of parameters that go into the model, nor have they released their code. Even if they did, it is easy to make errors in evaluating someone else’s model. Recall Nate Silver’s errors in his critique of PEC in 2014. So let me just make a few general comments. I am open to correction.

Their roots are in detail-oriented activities such as fantasy baseball. They score individual pollsters, and they want to predict things like individual-state vote shares. Achieving these goals requires building a model with lots of parameters, and running regressions and other statistical procedures to estimate those parameters. However, every parameter has an uncertainty attached to it. When all those parameters get put together to estimate the overall outcome, the resulting total carries greater risk of accumulating uncertainty that is hard to keep under control.

For this reason, the Huffington Post claim that FiveThirtyEight is biased toward Trump is probably wrong. It’s not that they like Trump – it’s that they are biased away from the frontrunner, whoever that is at any given moment. And this year, the frontrunner happens to be Hillary Clinton.

And then there is the question of why the FiveThirtyEight forecast has been so volatile. This may have to do with their use of national polls to compensate for the slowness of state polls to arrive. Because state opinion only correlates partially with national opinion, there is a risk of overcorrection. Think of it as oversteering a boat or a car.

In addition to all this, it has been said that the amount of available polling has decreased or may be of lower quality. That would increase uncertainty as well.

With all that prelude (whew!), let me explain how the Princeton Election Consortium achieves such a high level of confidence.

>>>

We start by generating the sharpest possible snapshot, based on state polls. State polls are more accurate than national polls, which at this late date are a source of unnecessary uncertainty.

For each state, my code calculates a median and its standard error, which together give a probability. This is done for each of 56 contests: the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five Congressional districts that have a special rule. Then a compounding procedure is used to calculate the exact distribution of all possibilities, from 0 to 538 electoral votes, without need for simulation. The median of that is the snapshot of where conditions appear to be today.

Note that in 2008 and 2012, this type of snapshot gave the electoral vote count very accurately – closer than FiveThirtyEight in 2008, and missing only Florida in 2012.

This approach has multiple advantages, not least of which is that it automatically sorts out uncorrelated and correlated changes between states. As the snapshot changes from day to day, unrelated fluctuations between states (such as random sampling error) get averaged out. At the same time, if a change is correlated among states, the whole snapshot moves.

The snapshot gets converted to a Meta-Margin, which is defined as how far all polls would have to move, in the same direction, to create a perfect toss-up. The Meta-Margin is great because it has units that we can all understand: a percentage lead. At the moment, the Meta-Margin is Clinton +2.6%.

Now, if we want to know what the statistical properties of the Meta-Margin are, we can just follow it over time:

This variation over time automatically tells us the effects of correlated error among all states. Uncorrelated error is cancelled by aggregation under the assumption of independence; what is left is correlated variation. The problem is solved without any regression. Hooray!

As I have noted, the Presidential Meta-Margin tends to move on a one-to-one basis with the Senate Meta-Margin and the generic House ballot. That suggests that downticket effects are powerful, and also that the snapshot calculation does a good job of separating correlated from uncorrelated change.

To turn the Meta-Margin into a win probability, the final step is to estimate how far the results of tomorrow’s election will be from today’s Meta-Margin. As a community, pollsters have pretty good judgment, but their average estimate of who will vote may be off a little. In past years, the snapshot has been quite good, ending up within a few electoral votes of the final outcome. That is equivalent to an uncertainty of less than one percentage point.

Here is a table for the last few Presidential races:

“Actual threshold margin” is estimated using voting thresholds for the several states that were just enough to put the winner over the top. Note that these errors are not symmetric: there seems to be a tendency for the winner to overperform his final Meta-Margin. So it is not clear that Meta-Margin errors are symmetrically distributed. That means we can’t just use the average overperformance – that might be an overestimate of the amount of error that would work against the front-runner. However, the sample is too small to be sure about this.

Another way to estimate Meta-Margin error is to use Senate polls. Here’s a chart from 2014 (look at the Presidential column only):

The directional median indicates a bonus that favors one party over the other. Over the last six Presidential election cycles, the absolute value of the error (i.e. ignoring whether it favors Democrats or Republicans) is 0.6%, really small.

To turn the Meta-Margin into a hard probability, I had to estimate the likely error on the Meta-Margin. For the home stretch, the likely-error fomula in my code assumed an Election Eve error of 0.8% 0.5% on average, following a t-distribution (parameter=3 d.f.). The t-distribution is a way of allowing for “longer-tail” outcomes than the usual bell-shaped curve.

So…there’s only one parameter to estimate. Again, hooray! However, estimating it was an exercise in judgment, to put it mildly. Here are some examples of how the win probability would be affected by various assumptions about final error:

As you can see, a less aggressive approach to estimating the home-stretch error would have given a Clinton win probability of 91-93%. That is about as low as the PEC approach could ever plausibly get.

I have also included the prediction if polls are assumed to be off by 5% in either direction on average. It is at this point that we finally get to a win probability that is as uncertain as the FiveThirtyEight approach. However, a 5% across-the-board error in state polls, going against the front-runner, has no precedent in data that I can see.

Bottom line: Using the Princeton Election Consortium’s methods, a less aggressive assumption (sigma=1.1%) leads to a Clinton win probability of 95%.

>>>

As I said at the top, my motivation in doing these calculations is to help readers allocate their activism properly. Whether the Presidential win probability is 91% or 99%, it is basically settled. Therefore it is a more worthwhile proposition to work in Senate or House campaigns. Get on over to IN/MO/NC/NH/WI, or find a good House district using the District Finder tool in the left sidebar.

Update: see this exchange, which suggests that a more reasonable uncertainty in the Meta-Margin is 1.1%, giving a Clinton win probability of 95%. However, to state the obvious, I am not going to change anything in the calculation at this point. That would not be kosher!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable_probability/feed/165The Nevada bonus is backhttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/the-nevada-bonus-is-back/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/the-nevada-bonus-is-back/#commentsSun, 06 Nov 2016 15:17:43 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18559Two states are hard to poll accurately, probably because they have high rates of migration: Alaska and Nevada. In addition, Nevada has a high Hispanic population, which votes heavily Democratic. Based on early voting, it looks like 2016 will be a repeat of 2010 and 2012, in which Democrats outperformed Nevada polls by 10 and 3 percentage points, respectively.

In 2010, poll medians missed the victory of Senator Harry Reid (D) over Sharron Angle (R) by nearly 10 percentage points. In 2012, President Obama led Mitt Romney in early voting by 7.6% and ended up winning the state by 6.7%, more than his polling lead of 4%.

In 2016, as the Votemaster says, early voting is favoring Hillary Clinton nationwide. And in Nevada, where early voting ended on Friday, Clinton has outperformed President Obama. If her final total matches the 2012 result, it would be a 6-point performance over her polling median, Clinton +1%. In short, the Nevada bonus will be just about halfway between 2010 and 2016.

In the crucial Senate race there, the current median is Cortez Masto (D) +3.0%. It appears highly likely that this seat will go Democratic. That would bring the Senate Democratic/Independent total to a minimum of 47 seats (for easy reference, the RCP counter is here). In Pennsylvania, add McGinty, who is at +3.0%, to get 48 seats. To retain control, Republicans will need to hold Democrats to winning only one of the following five races: Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. That is an uphill climb for them.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/the-nevada-bonus-is-back/feed/107Confidence is associated with increased turnouthttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/05/confidence-is-associated-with-increased-turnout/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/05/confidence-is-associated-with-increased-turnout/#commentsSun, 06 Nov 2016 02:40:40 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18547I’m getting mail claiming that when voters are sure their candidate will win, they are less likely to vote. Therefore (these are Democrats writing) I should pipe down. However, this speculation contradicts both human nature and empirical evidence.

First, think about why we vote. Since a single vote basically never swings a race, the rational argument for voting is not strong. Instead, we vote because it is our duty, because we build the habit over time, and because voting makes us feel good. In light of that, the obvious consequence of supporting a winner is increased likelihood of voting – there’s more emotional reward.

This graph shows outcomes plotted as a function of polling margins. If polls were accurate, the slope of the green line would be 1 with an intercept of 0. But it is not. Indeed, for every 1% of actual margin, only 0.84+/-0.03% is captured in polls*. This underperformance implies that there is a hidden bonus for whoever is ahead. The intercept essentially goes through the origin, so there’s no overall bias toward either candidate.

It seems that this phenomenon could be caused in three ways, not mutually exclusive:

If you live in a state where you are certain that your candidate will win, you are more likely to vote than predicted by likely-voter screens.

In the same state, if you support the losing candidate, you are less likely to vote than predicted by likely-voter screens.

Now, I should say that it’s not clear that this idea applies to a national race. But my point is that we don’t have evidence that confidence is a turnout-killer.

Finally, consider the converse. When Donald Trump claims that the election is “rigged,” that tells his supporters that he is doomed. Based on the state-level data above, this might depress turnout.

We’re entering a period when all the math and data gets converted to short quotes. The above quote is pre-Comey, but I will live with it.

I have some interviews this weekend. I doubt that I will be asked about median-based probability estimation. With luck I will get to the question where there’s real suspense: who will control the Senate?

Here are the weekend’s planned TV hits. I’ll update this as things develop.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/04/sound-bites-and-bug-bites/feed/227On CNN Digital: watch the data, not the dramahttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/on-cnn-digital-watch-the-data-not-the-drama/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/on-cnn-digital-watch-the-data-not-the-drama/#commentsFri, 04 Nov 2016 00:00:42 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18494So, Julian Zelizer and I had an e-chat about next Tuesday on CNN Digital. Mostly themes you know!
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/on-cnn-digital-watch-the-data-not-the-drama/feed/35Politics & Polls #19: Election Nighthttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/politics-polls-19-election-night/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/politics-polls-19-election-night/#commentsThu, 03 Nov 2016 18:48:20 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18490In this episode, Julian Zelizer and I talk about what we’ll be watching for on Election Night.
]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/politics-polls-19-election-night/feed/36Slow train cominghttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/slow-train-coming/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/slow-train-coming/#commentsThu, 03 Nov 2016 13:26:52 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18477The PEC calculation relies on state-level polls, which take time to come in. But by now the Meta-Analysis is current: of the top ten states listed in The Power Of One Voter, nearly all polls are post-Comey. The exceptions are Iowa and Michigan.

Michigan is vexing because of one oddball survey taken over a two-month period showing Clinton +20%. This is where medians help a lot; that race is more like Clinton +4.5%, which makes it about as competitive as Virginia and North Carolina. I hear Hillary Clinton is going to Michigan. In addition, there are three close House races there. It’s probably a good use of her time.

If you want an estimate that uses national polls, see The Upshot. I’m a little concerned that FiveThirtyEight’s code double-counts (i.e. overcounts) the swings in national and state polls. They’ve been a bit underconfident and volatile.

Of far greater import is the recent shift in Senate polls, which are also post-Comey (though we’re using a longer time window there). As of now, six races show medians (calculated using the PEC rule) of 1 percentage point or less. Entering the sharpest knife-edge zone are two states that have been trending toward Republicans: Indiana and Wisconsin. Democratic candidates Bayh (D-IN) and Feingold (D-WI) may be caught in an undertow caused by a shift from Clinton +6% (median of 19 polls that were in the field on October 24th) to Clinton +2% (median of 7 polls, October 31).

Things aren’t looking great for Bayh – the most recent 3 polls show his opponent Todd Young (R) leading by a median of 4 percentage points. The Senate Meta-Margin is staying steady, in part because Jason Kander (D-MO) is improving.

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/slow-train-coming/feed/125Not 100%http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/03/probabilities/
Thu, 03 Nov 2016 08:55:45 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18469For a moment this morning, the top banner probability has read 100%. Sorry, rounding glitch in the software. It should max out at >99%. Fixing soon.
]]>Between Two Quantshttp://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/between-two-quants/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/between-two-quants/#commentsWed, 02 Nov 2016 16:00:21 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18460NYC readers, tonight I’ll be at the American Museum of Natural History, I’ll have a discussion with The Upshot’s Josh Katz. Our topic is The Science of Predicting an Election, with an added special focus on his approach to visual data representations using maps. It’s part of the SciCafe series and is free of charge. Doors open at 6:30pm, and we start at 7:00pm. See you under the dinosaur!

Update: Josh Katz is sick! So it’s just me. Sorry, Upshot fans!

Update2: Great crowd, full house of nearly 600 people gathered under the titanosaur. I talked about polls, polarization, and the uncanny ability of Google Correlate to predict Trump support on a state-by-state basis (read more about that here). Here are the slides, which will be better with narration, once it’s available. Thanks to AMNH for a great event!

]]>http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/between-two-quants/feed/46An Early Look at 2024?http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/demographics/
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/demographics/#commentsWed, 02 Nov 2016 11:00:58 +0000http://election.princeton.edu/?p=18439Tweet
Here’s something interesting I ran across thanks to @southpaw on Twitter: Scholastic’s survey of the preferences of K-12 kids.

The pattern is striking. This looks a lot like where political demographic trends in the United States seem to be headed. Overall, the electoral count using today’s allocations is 439 D, 99 R. It’s equivalent to a national popular vote of 57% D, 43% R. This 14-point margin is almost identical to the 16-point margin currently reported for millennials, defined as voters aged 18-33.

Of the currently Republican states, those with high Hispanic populations (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Texas) are trending Democratic. So are Southern states with populations that are trending toward being more urban and educated, South Carolina and Georgia. Finally, there are states with a Mormon populations, Idaho and Utah…though I suspect those last states might just be a temporary blip because of Donald Trump, who many Mormons detest.

Obviously, a big question is whether these kids will retain their party preference. It has been observed that when young adults form their first party preference, they tend to retain that preference for a lifetime. If that continues to hold, then Republicans have about 10 years to win over these kids. Might I suggest lemonade and immigration reform?

Updates are now done every hour. I’m not trolling for traffic. I just want to be able to see the effects of new state polls soon after they hit the Huffington Post (their RSS feed is in the left sidebar). Like you, I watch the automated Princeton Election Consortium calculation!

The Upshot, which carries our calculations, asked for individual estimates of Maine and Nebraska’s Congressional districts. We implemented that on Saturday, October 29th, mainly through a change in EV_estimator.m. The update took the Presidential Meta-Margin toward Donald Trump by 0.1%, principally because there is a chance Hillary Clinton will lose Maine-CD2 . The jerseyvotes calculation is also updated: at the moment, turning out one voter for Clinton or Trump is about equally valuable in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, Pennsylvania, or Virginia.

There seems to be a lot of interest in understanding how and why the PEC calculation differs from other sites. I will address that topic soon.

Now, what are jerseyvotes and why do they matter for get-out-the-vote activity?The basic idea behind the jerseyvotes calculation is that individual voters have very different amounts of power to affect the overall Presidential race. For example, Vermont is a guaranteed Democratic state and Oklahoma is a guaranteed Republican state. Therefore, in those states an individual voter’s preference only matters in primaries and some local races. On the other hand, in a state that could go either way, individual votes matter a lot. And if the state is small, voters are extra-powerful for two reasons: small voting population, and disproportionately low numbers of votes are assigned per electoral vote.

Back in 2008, I set up jerseyvotes as a way to assign a numeric score to a voter’s power. The idea is as follows: how much power does one vote have to swing the entire national race? This is implemented by seeing how much the Democratic (Clinton) or Republican (Trump) win probability is affected by adding one vote in one state. That is then converted to a vote power by scaling it